'in All Thedas I Never Expected To Find Someone Who Could Draw My Attention From The Fade'

bioware since 2012: honestly we shouldn’t have redesigned the elves. from now on, regular faces for elves only

me:

this whole idea in both the fandom and the games themselves that being a people attached to their past & a lost civilization is a failing whereas a celebration of the present is something to strive for wrt elven & dwarven culture is something that reads as fundamentally western & liberal to me.

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION EXTRACTS - SOLAS HEAD TURNAROUND

Dragon Age: Inquisition - concept art - early rejected pitches for multiplayer characters by Matt Rhodes [source]

Art by Matt Rhodes.

Warning: Some dav criticism ahead

Why is Tevinter so shallow? It isn't just about the lack of slavery (that, whatever else it is, however it was handled before, has been a pillar of Tevinter identity and inevitably leaves a hole in the narrative by being pratically missing). Why does the magisterium, the caste system, the Antaam invasion outside of Minrathous and the Black Divine play no role at all in its storyline?

Why the atrocities of the Crows (buying children, for example?) never come up during their faction quests?

Why do we hear nothing about the political side of the mortalitasi, how they control Nevarra from the shadows?

Why do we never even hear about Kont-aar even though we are in Rivain? Why there is no counterpoint to the (metaphorically, by qunari standards, mindless and souless) Antaam? Why is the qun completely missing from the game and the qunari reduced to cannon fodder the player has to cut down?

Why are the questions about magic that permeate every previous game absent here, especially when veilguard being set in the north could have given us such a unique viewpoint?

And, more importantly:

Why am I supposed to believe that no dalish elves would worship the gods they have already been worshipping their whole lives? That they wouldn't follow out of naivety, out of misplaced hope for a better future, out of fear, seeking to placate them?

Why am I supposed to believe that the gods would not even try to seek the dalish, when we are told by the previous games about the dalish hunters of legend, about how they are a mighty force to be reckoned with when united? Why do they only show up at the Blood of Arlathan quest, to play damsel in distress?

Why am I supposed to believe that no elves from the alienages would want to join the gods, because of every reason mentioned above, or out of spite or disdain for an uncaring world?

And yes, I know everyone learned the gods were evil off-screen. Why was it off-screen?

Also, where are the agents of Fen'Harel? Where are the people that vanished by the end of Trespasser?

Obviously, you can't expand on all of this in a single game, but why is all of it absent?

Why is bioware so afraid to engage with the world they created?

Dragon Age Veilguard, doodles 4

Melancholy

Epler: “It’s really fucked up that you have the option to kill a clan of Dalish elves in every game!”

Epler: “That’s why, in Veilguard, we’re killing DOZENS of Dalish clans no matter what you do!”

Epler: “The majority of the Dalish elves in Thedas are dead now, since they mostly lived in the south (where the Dales are).”

Epler: “The elves needed a win. 👍🏻”

forever thinking about the role of ellipses when talk about each other. two normally eloquent people who suddenly cant finish a single sentence when the other is on their mind. not only do they share a cadence and rhythm to their speech but they share in the dissolution of it. the overwhelming-ness of their feelings for each other is conveyed through literal punctuation; always trailing off, an inability to focus

its giving "if i loved you less, i might be able to talk about it more"