The messy queer representation of Dragon Age: Origins was commendable for 2009—and I even miss some of its thorns

GamesRPGDragon AgeDragon Age: OriginsThe messy queer representation of Dragon Age: Origins was commendable for 2009—and I even miss some of its thornsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Bioware / via Seraphicvictory, Dragon Age Wiki)

Zevran, an antivan crow from Dragon Age: Origins, looks wistfully towards the sky.

Dragon Age at 15(Image credit: BioWare)All this week we’re looking back on the best of the Dragon Age series, to celebrate its 15th anniversary. We’ve got loads of greatDragon Age opinions and retrospectives, and we’ll be adding more to the list in the days to come.

Dragon Age at 15

(Image credit: BioWare)All this week we’re looking back on the best of the Dragon Age series, to celebrate its 15th anniversary. We’ve got loads of greatDragon Age opinions and retrospectives, and we’ll be adding more to the list in the days to come.

(Image credit: BioWare)

Morrigan, the Witch of the Wilds in the Dragon Age serries, shown wielding magic in front of a Darkspawn.

All this week we’re looking back on the best of the Dragon Age series, to celebrate its 15th anniversary. We’ve got loads of greatDragon Age opinions and retrospectives, and we’ll be adding more to the list in the days to come.

It might sound like stating the obvious, but queer representation—in gamesparticularly,for some reason—is a thorny subject. As I myself am starting to nudge into my early 30s (oh, god) I’m beginning to notice that the wants and needs of younger gamers aren’t quite aligning with my own.

In mulling over my views on Taash in Dragon Age: The Veilguard (a thing I amstilldoing), I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic (given it’sDragon Age: Origins’ 15th anniversarythis week) about the representation featured in that game—flawed and messy, certainly, but still remarkably bold for its time.

I didn’t realise I liked men until I was 18, and that’s mostly because, despite growing up in a very accepting family, I was also raised in a time where a layer of casual homophobia was the background radiation in everything. “Gay” was still flung around as an insult in schools, the Newgrounds-era internet was still a minefield of slurs and screamers, and mainstream media was still wrapping its brain around the ancient construct of bisexuality as… y’know, a thing that people could do.

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Zevran’s writer, David Gaider, the former lead writer and creator of the Dragon Age setting who happens to be gay himself, gave a talk duringPax West 2019. He talked a little about BioWare’s history with queer representation, as well as Origins pushing into new territory for the studio. His anecdote about Juhani, a lesbian character from Knights of the Old Republic, puts into stark view the ground that was being broken here: “She wasn’t allowed to say ‘I love you’ or mention the word ‘love’ at all,” Gaider said. It’s easy to forget we’ve come a long way.

“Leliana resists the violence of the Chantry as an institution. She expresses faith as resistance, as a queer thing. In both Origins and Inquisition, you gain Leliana’s approval through helping those in need and demonstrating your commitment to ending systemic oppression. In Inquisition the calm, collected spymaster pretty much only loses her cool when her anger at injustice compels her. Whether as Sister or as Left Hand of the Divine, she consistently uses her position within the Chantry to question, disturb, and queer its space.”

(Image credit: EA)

Leliana from Dragon Age: Origins, her face covered in blood

Khan also draws threads that I hadn’t even considered before—for example, how the Chantry’s treatment of mages has some deep connections to our real-life oppression. In particular, the act of making a mage “tranquil”, effectively lobotomising them to make them docile and ‘safe’, has a horrific real-world parallel.

(Image credit: Bioware)

Zevran, antivan crow, stands with the appropriate amount of blood splatter in Dragon Age: Origins.

“Soviet intelligence agents routinely cruise gay bars seeking candidates for blackmail who could be co-opted as spies, a spokesman for the CIA, another agency which is concerned about possible espionage, said … Former CIA official Victor Marchetti said in a separate interview that the United States employed similar techniques not only against Communists but in order to extract information from officials of allied governments who were ‘closet’ homosexuals.”

I’m sad we didn’t get to see this side of Zevran explored as overtly as it would be if he was gay, not bisexual, though it’s not entirely absent—he clearly has experience in seducing his targets with the aim to slay them, but never having his true feelings, or existence, treated as something appropriate to express. As he puts it: “I grew up among those who sold the illusion of love, and then I was trained to make my heart cold in favour of the kill. Everything I have been taught says that what I feel is wrong.”

Nonetheless, Gaider would later get to write Dorian in Dragon Age: Inquisition, and directly tackle the issue of conversion “therapy”—that is, attempting to torture a gay person into suppressing their sexuality—before hedeparted the developer in 2016.

Dragon Age Dorian

(Image credit: Bioware)

Krem, a member of Iron Bull’s mercenary group in Dragon Age: Inquisition, stands illuminated by firelight.

Still—I think what the early Dragon Age games did otherwise is commendable, and I’d rather have messy and imperfect representation than none at all (though the Pearl’s “surprise” joke can be nuked into orbit). There’s a part of me that misses these weird, gnarled undercurrents, too. I want complicated representation that gets at the heart of real-world issues. I like that Dorian explored some topics that were difficult to stomach, and I lament that Zevran’s CIA-inspired backstory never fully intersected with his queerness in an overt way.

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