Dragon Age: Inquisition is a game I’m looking forward to, despite the last entry to the series being rather mediocre. From what I’ve seen of Inquisition so far gives the impression that BioWare has taken the best elements from Origins, and DA: II, to create a game that will be appealing. As part of a series in learning more about the game a new character Q&A has been released, this time focusing on the mage Dorian, who hails from the Tervinter Imperium.
Dorian is a mage from a very wealthy and powerful family, but has rejected the lifestyle he was accustomed to due to seeing how it can lead to corruption. This in turn makes him a social pariah of the Tervinter elite, especially since he discovers some plot of the Tervinter mages and tries to expose it to the rest of the population. He will prove to be a rather powerful character as he has full control of his magical abilities, which allows him to bring forth incredibly powerful attacks, and raise the dead to fight for him.
As a person Dorian will be a fully gay character who is very intelligent, and has a rather sharp wit. This wit and intelligence has been cultivated over many years in a society where outdoing peers is required, and it also makes him incredibly sarcastic. He also believes that the Tervinter Imperium isn’t beyond saving, and he wants to bring it back from the brink of whatever plot is working through the higher end of its society. BioWare does acknowledge the inclusion of a gay character could be controversial to some, but I say good on them. It’d be nice if we didn’t live in a world where sexual orientation is a big deal, and hopefully any outcry is ignored.
Source: Bioware
Eldur
‘Fully gay’ made me laugh.
blarty
The problem is, knowing previous efforts from Bioware towards inclusion (I hate that word, in this instance, it almost explictly says there was exclusion to begin with) there certainly will be some form of outcry from idiots who probably still have to write ‘L’ and ‘R’ on their shoes.
MrYd
I’m not keen on that “controversial” bit. I’d much prefer it if they just stuck a gay character in without having to make a big deal, or almost apologising for the fact that it might be a bit controversial.
There’s nothing controversial about it at all, unless you’re some sort of homophobic tosser. Do they really need to be apologising to those sorts of idiots?
Just stick him in the game, don’t say anything about it before it’s released, and then just completely ignore the idiots when they get upset.
It appears the writer (the one answering the questions and apologising for it being controversial) is also gay, which makes it even more disappointing.
Of course, they might just want it to be controversial for publicity reasons. In which case, I probably don’t want to finish this sentence about them for fear of giving away all my best secret swearing strategies.
Kennykazey
Yeah, this character seems more like a bulletpoint on a marketing plan now.
Eldur
For me, it’s just about a character being well written – they should have depth, strengths and flaws, a personality… Everything else is secondary to that. Dorian’s sexuality (or any other character’s for that matter) should only be commented upon if it makes him a more interesting character – anything else is purely using ‘gay’ as a sales point and something to ignite the forums.
Imagine Bioware announcing a new female character and the focus of that announcement being about her being fully straight. It would be extremely odd. The same applies here.
MrYd
Having a gay character _is_ interesting and worthy of some comment though. It doesn’t often happen. A straight character wouldn’t be worth commenting on, because the majority of them are already straight. Or at least it’s left completely unmentioned and you can assume there’s a pretty good chance they’re straight, just as you can assume anyone you ever meet strands a pretty good chance of being straight. That’s just numbers.
If you count all the characters in games where their sexuality is clearly stated, or even just very obviously unambiguous, the number of gay characters is still far too low. The number of games where the main character is gay is somewhere around zero too, when it should be 5 or 10 percent, or more, or less, depending on whose figures you want to believe.
I can understand why this is the case though. If 90% of your audience are straight, it makes perfect sense to make your main character straight. Might put people off playing the game if they can’t relate to the character. Only problem is, men are obviously not put off playing as women (look at the success of Tomb Raider for that, although I guess there’s a couple of other obvious reasons straight men might not mind that). And gay men aren’t put off playing as straight men. And personally, I’ve never had to fight off swarms of aliens or zombies or dragons or anything like that. So I’m not sure how good an excuse it is to say your audience might not relate to the character.
So having a gay character is still newsworthy. Eventually, it might not be. But right now, it’s worth pointing out. Anyone sensible will just think “So? What’s your point?”, but it also helps identify the internet muppets. And maybe other companies will think “Well, nobody cared much when they did it, so we can do it too” and we end up with a much more representative set of characters overall.
However, using it as a marketing tool and also apologising for it being controversial is a bit of a shit move.