Earlier this year, we ranked the party members from all the Dragon Age games, but kept our rankings for each game separate. So Origins’ companions got their own ranking, as did Dragon Age II’s and Inquisition’s. Now that The Veilguard is out (and we ranked those newcomers, as well) we thought we’d see how each of these casts stacks up against each other. In my review for The Veilguard, I said that the seven members of the titular team composed probably the best collective cast in the series, as it didn’t have the same peaks and valleys as the casts that came before. For now, few members of the Veilguard rise to the upper echelons of these rankings, but maybe, if those newcomers get as much time to develop as the veterans have had, they will surpass them someday. But for now, here’s our ranking of every Dragon Age party member in the main games (note that we won’t be including those characters who are added via expansions and DLC). Spoilers for all four games follow.
2 / 38
Sten, the lone Qunari character in Dragon Age: Origins, has to carry the unfortunate burden of being a walking codex entry for people who are far away from everything going on. That’s not to say Sten doesn’t have his own charms separate from telling you about the Qun. He’s a bluntly funny tortured soul who bears the weight of his culture silently until you get him to open up. Sten helps pave the way for more interesting Qunari characters like the Arishok and Iron Bull, but there are more interesting characters in Origins’ party.
3 / 38
In Dragon Age 2, protagonist Hawke has two siblings who act as temporary party members for the game’s first act. One will die in the opening with almost no ceremony, The other will get sidelined around ten hours in. Bethany, Hawke’s mage sister, easily gets the worst hand out of the two. She gets dragged away by the Circle in one route, becomes a Grey Warden in another, or she dies. Carver, Hawke’s warrior brother, has a similar setup, but he at least has some autonomy and drama in his branching paths. Bethany, meanwhile, is pretty much dragged through the story, with BioWare separating or killing every member of a family in a game ostensibly about familial ties. Bethany is comparatively sweet and understanding whereas her brother is decidedly neither of those things, but BioWare gave her nothing to work with.
4 / 38
Sebastian Vael, the lone DLC party member in Dragon Age 2, feels like the game could go on without him. Sure, he’s got his own storyline, struggling between whether or not he wants to be the ruler of Starkhaven as the brutal murder of his family has left him the only living heir. But beyond that, he mostly sways in the background of the main plot, being unwaveringly devout to the church and casting judgment upon others. His biggest contributions are his companion quest, which gives returning companion Leliana a chance to appear, and when he threatens to level the entirety of the city of Kirkwall if you don’t kill a terrorist. Which like, good for standing on your principles, king. But I barely know you. You’re the tagalong friend who awkwardly weighs in from the outskirts of the circle as everyone else is chatting. Go away!
5 / 38
Dragon Age: Origins’ healer mage starts off deceptively simple. Wynne is shown to be a compassionate, protective woman who cares about those around her. She scolds you for shirking your Wardenly duties to shack up with your love interest. She is the party’s grandma, and she fits that role with all the care and thorniness you’d expect. But as her story progresses, it becomes clear that her attempts to impart wisdom upon the younger generation come from her reckoning with her own mortality. Wynne is a senior to everyone else in the party, but she’s also confronted her own death once before being saved by a spirit. She wants to do the best she can with her second chance, whether that’s in making right by old mistakes or saving the world.
6 / 38
Oghren is the type of character who could easily fall into being a comic relief party member. The dwarven warrior is a boisterous drunk, but it’s all to bury his angst at the apparent loss of his wife who disappeared into the underground Deep Roads. Oghren quickly becomes one of the Warden’s most loyal companions, even following them into the Grey Wardens’ ranks in the Awakening expansion. He starts out prickly but endears himself to the group almost immediately. He’s one of the best sources of banter and raunchy wit, but he’s never without heart to balance it out with substance.
7 / 38
Carver suffers from most of the same problems Bethany does, but his equivalent to her Circle route is what gives him the upper hand. If you choose to leave him behind on the Deep Roads expedition in Dragon Age 2’s first act, he will choose to join the church’s mage-oppressive military outfit, the Templars. He does this as an act of defiance against his older sibling and it plays into the tension developed throughout the first chunk of the game. After that, he is gone for most of the game much like Bethany, only showing up during climactic moments like a glorified cameo. It’s a shame.
8 / 38
It is incredibly fitting that Cole, the spirit of compassion who can join the Inquisition, has the ability to make people forget about him, because that dude is unfortunately a pretty forgettable guy. Cole is by no means a bad character, but his story doesn’t quite live up to the highs of his peers. Cole’s existence as something in between a spirit and a human, and how he chooses to lean into one path or the other, creates some interesting routes for the character, but it ultimately hits with the same fervor as a fairly forgettable side quest. He’s good! He’s just unremarkable against the competition.
9 / 38
You couldn’t get off on a worse foot than Zevran does with the Warden. The elven assassin greets you with a dagger and killing intent and manages to talk you out of killing him on sight. Do you know how charming you have to be to go from getting ready to take someone out for good to being a (mostly) trusted member of the crew? They let him sleep in a tent with them and everything. Zevran sometimes feels like the “forgotten” member of Origins’ team as he didn’t go on to become a series mainstay like the rest of the game’s potential romantic interests. But despite falling into some tropes as a seductive assassin, he still always manages to win me over each time I’m passing through Ferelden.
10 / 38
Josephine Montilyet is the only advisor in Inquisition who fans didn’t have an established relationship with prior to the 2014 RPG, and she still managed to carve out her place in their hearts. As the Inquisition’s resident diplomat, Josie is always thinking practically where Cullen might send soldiers to handle a problem and Leliana would cut its throat. As her story unfolds, it’s revealed that the most buttoned-up character in Skyhold has a bit of a wild side, but is still a fan of the finer things in life, like theater and team base gossip. Despite her political expertise, Josie is one of the most grounded, charismatic characters in Inquisition. Her story isn’t about some massive faction or world-shattering event, it’s about a girl who is trying to make sense of a world where dragons roam and people can shoot fire from their hands.
11 / 38
The only returning companion from Dragon Age: Origins is inarguably the most impactful in Dragon Age 2. Anders is a far cry from the wisecracking apostate we met in the Awakening expansion—he’s now a tortured radical after being possessed by the spirit of Justice. He becomes a healer in the city of Kirkwall, growing more and more fanatical as the game goes on and he watches injustice unfold against the mages. Eventually, whether by his own fanaticism or the spirit’s influence, Anders blows up the Kirkwall Chantry, sparking a mage rebellion that changes the Dragon Age universe forever.
All of that makes him a compelling but divisive character. People love Anders for his tragic angst as much as others hate him for being a terrorist. In most versions of his story, I fall into the former camp. But Anders’ rivalry path, in which you can convince him to turn on and murder the mages he just sought to free, remains one of the most baffling and cowardly decisions BioWare has ever made with the Dragon Age franchise. It technically works within the game’s friendship and rivalry system, in which you can have a friendly or adversarial relationship with your party that can challenge their worldview, but it’s also such an irresponsible moment that is, sadly, par for the course with how Dragon Age tends to “both sides” issues of oppression. As the face of this conflict in Dragon Age, Anders inevitably has to bear the baggage of a series that has never wanted to take a side and failed to make a case for both arguments. And it undermines him and the story of Dragon Age 2 in the end.
12 / 38
Sera, the elven rogue and Friend of Red Jenny, is an acquired taste. She’s impulsive, disruptive, and judgemental, but she is a product of the world she’s been raised in. As a city elf, Sera has seen the worst of how Thedas treats elves and anyone who isn’t seen as part of the upper class. She’s rebellious and pursues her idea of justice with reckless abandon. That means she’s also a source of tension and drama as she butts heads with anyone who doesn’t fit her idea of what elves should be. Sera is thorny but that’s what makes her delightful when you get closer to her, letting you look past the manic angst and see someone who wants things to be better.
13 / 38
Admittedly, your mileage on Lucanis and Neve may hinge on which city you choose to save in The Veilguard’s first act, as not helping their respective homes will narrow the possibilities of their arcs. To be clear, I’ve seen both variations before writing this ranking, and still would probably put him at the bottom of this list. Lucanis is a web of fascinating contradictions. On the surface, he seems like a character ripe for tiresome edgy nonsense with his brooding demeanor, magic crow wings that he uses to fly around and strike his targets from above, and the fact that the demon embodiment of Spite lives within him. But he’s also kind of a golden retriever.
Lucanis drinks more coffee than any writer you’ve met, just to stay awake and maintain control of his body, cooks for the team and remembers all their favorite foods, and he is protective of those he cares about. His story is a Game of Thrones-esque political drama with family ties and blood magic in the mix, and unfortunately, it can feel a bit truncated on certain playthroughs. Still, Lucanis’ inner struggle with his literal and figurative demons shines through.
14 / 38
As Origins’ DLC character, not enough people have gotten to experience Shale in all her glory. The golem is quietly one of BioWare’s best-written and funniest companions, while also bringing some monumental context to parts of the Dragon Age universe that go otherwise obscured. Shale’s initial nihilism is somehow never exhausting because of the pitch-perfect writing of each line she utters, and watching her reluctantly grow into someone who cares about the party when she has spent hours roasting them is a delight. I’m watching videos of her banter and it is such a shame that not everyone who played Origins got to meet Shale. She’s truly an underrated companion in the BioWare canon.
15 / 38
As one of the few characters to appear in every Dragon Age game, Cullen’s role as one of the three advisors in Inquisition is the culmination of every story we’ve seen him pass through. This is a man who started out dedicated to the church and his calling as a mage-fighting Templar just to watch it fail him and others time and time again. Like several other characters in Inquisition, Cullen reckons with who he is after the systems he bought into have fallen apart. Depending on the player’s actions, he can grow from all he’s endured in Origins and Dragon Age II, or he can succumb to the rot the church put inside him. He’s an effective symbol for the failing systems of the Dragon Age universe, and an excellent reminder that its people and the world they live in are not beyond saving.
16 / 38
There have been a lot of Qunari throughout the Dragon Age series, but none have made an impression quite like Iron Bull. The mercenary is a double agent, but he’s refreshingly upfront about it when you meet him. He’s a fun-loving warrior who likes to drink, kill dragons, bro about with his team, and fuck. But despite his seemingly one-track mind, Iron Bull is one of the only characters who can actually betray you if you give him a reason to. Depending on your choices in the main game, Iron Bull may turn on you during the Trespasser DLC with seemingly no remorse; even if you’ve entered a romantic relationship with him. The Qunari spy told you who he was, and he will still be that by the end if you don’t give him a reason to be anyone else. You can’t judge a book by its cover, even if the title on the spine tells you everything you need to know.
17 / 38
The lone qunari on the team is an interesting one. Taash joins The Veilguard initially to help the team fight the dragons they’ll face when fighting the elven gods. Though their foes are the size of buildings, their biggest fight is the one they deal with internally as they navigate the intersection of gender and culture. Taash is standing between two worlds: the Qunari one they were born in, and the Rivain one they have grown into. They feel pulled in different directions, whether that be in the way they dress, the food they eat, or the gender they identify as.
Though Taash can initially come off as bullheaded and deadpan, it’s clear they are an introspective, thoughtful person who wants to be themself, but also seeks the approval of those who have cared for them. Finding yourself when you have so many forces telling you who you’re supposed to be is a pretty universal concept, but watching The Veilguard wrestle with these ideas within its own world remains one of the series’ strengths, and Taash is one of the most endearing and entertaining examples under its belt.
18 / 38
The return of Leliana, a companion in Dragon Age: Origins, as an advisor in Inquisition was (and remains) controversial given that her appearance seemingly overwrote decisions the player made in the first game. Some of this was explained retroactively through epilogues, but those did little to alleviate feelings of the spymaster being one of BioWare’s seemingly unkillable favorites. Though she serves as a case study in Dragon Age’s complicated relationship with continuity, Leliana’s story in Inquisition, much like Cullen’s, shows one of the few mainstays of each Dragon Age game finally becoming who they were always meant to be. After saving the world once, Leliana has gone from the once soft-spoken bard to a cunning agent of the Inquisition. She is disenfranchised from the church, but not the people she served alongside. She has the potential to become the leader of the church within the Dragon Age universe, and depending on whether you push her to remain compassionate or steel herself, her reign can be paved with kindness or blood. Inquisition is all about watching the world change and seeing the people who make it happen become who they’re supposed to be, and despite the series-wide complications, Leliana shines once more in her third appearance.
Back in the Origins days, she had none of that baggage and was simply a repentant sister of the Chantry with a dark past and a devout demeanor. She is one of the few bright lights in Origins, even as the reality of who she once was becomes clear. Leliana shifts and changes to match the needs of Dragon Age more than once, but there is something refreshing about looking back at where she began.
19 / 38
Fenris, the lyrium-infused elven ex-slave from the land of the Tevinter Imperium, approaches Dragon Age 2’s mage problem as someone who has been the victim of the worst crimes magic can cause in this world. He’s been made into a living weapon at the behest of his mage master, and lost his family, memory, and almost all of his sense of self before escaping to Kirkwall. It’s only natural he’s dismissive and untrusting of mages. If you press him on this, he comes to see the issues with lumping every mage into the same pile as the slavers he knew in Tevinter. Fenris is one of the best examples of how Dragon Age 2’s friendships and rivalries can diverge in life-altering ways, and the delicious angst that comes with romancing him as rival mage Hawke is unmatched. He operates on an extreme in a game that sometimes has trouble dealing with the nuances of the conflict it centers on, but his relationship is most rewarding when you try to help him see the gray in between the black and white.
20 / 38
Kirkwall’s Captain of the Guard is probably the most grounded of Dragon Age 2’s companions. She’s not a radical mage, a swash-buckling pirate on the lookout for her next adventure, or a blood mage consorting with a demon. Aveline’s just a woman trying to get by and comfortably sleep at night. She starts as a member of the City Guard before her sense of honesty kicks in and she uncovers corruption in her ranks, leading to her ascending to the role of Captain. But even as she climbs the ladder of city defense, her story doesn’t escalate in scale, instead staying endearing and lowkey. Some of the most memorable moments in Dragon Age 2 are the quiet ones away from all the political strife, and Aveline’s painfully awkward attempt at courting her husband-to-be remains an incredible sequence that perfectly pulls off how even the strongest among us can be as vulnerable and clumsy as anyone else. She is a woman of multitudes, the beating heart of Hawke’s team, and a shining beacon for the idea of using what time you have in this life to do right by others.
21 / 38
Blackwall, or a man going by that name, is one of the most slept-on characters in Dragon Age: Inquisition. He is initially believed to be a Grey Warden sent to find people to join their Darkspawn-killing ranks. It turns out, however, that he’s not a Warden at all, but a man named Thom Rainer who took on the name after the true Warden Blackwall recruited and was then killed protecting him. Rainer, believing his life otherwise forfeit, assumed Blackwall’s identity and strove to continue his work as a Warden. But in taking another man’s identity, he sought to erase his own, including his past crimes and treachery. As the guilt of his past failings catches up to him, Blackwall’s story can go multiple ways. He can accept his punishment, be given to the Wardens, or be given freedom to atone without hiding. A lot of those big reveals have gone unnoticed by fans because they’re buried under a story that feels like that of a pretty standard, overly stoic fantasy RPG warrior. Once all is said and done, though, Blackwall’s story is a pretty damn effective tale of owning up to one’s mistakes, and proudly being better.
22 / 38
It took every ounce of my self-control to not put the Mabari hound you recruit early on in Dragon Age: Origins at the very top of this list. Sure, the others we’ve ranked above him are more complex and are woven deeply into the drama of Origins’ narrative, but are they the goodest of good boys? Are they a canine king worthy of ascending to the Ferelden throne at a moment’s notice? I think not.
23 / 38
At first, Bellara felt primed to slip through the cracks for me. The elven mage, introduced as an expert on ancient elf technology and magic, seems scatterbrained if she’s not fixated on one of her interests. But as her story unfolds, it becomes clear that Bellara’s preoccupation with elven artifacts, lost history, and hobbies like fiction writing are all born out of a need to distract herself from her grief, and possibly make up for her failures.
When you meet her, Bellara has been hunting for a way to make the world make sense again, only for the elven gods she had known her whole life to return, and everything she knew is repeatedly flipped on its head. What does someone who seeks to restore history do when it’s constantly changing? What decisions do you make when the answers you’ve found can hurt those who have already gone through so much? Bellara is the kind of character a story like The Veilguard needs: as the world changes, she’s the most well-equipped to understand its significance and ponder the effects it will have on everyone when the dust settles.
24 / 38
The Veilguard’s Grey Warden companion is a man-and-a-half. Davrin is a monster hunter who carves each of the beasts he faces into wooden statues from logs he cuts himself. He’s also a great bird-cat father to Assan, one of the last griffons who was once thought extinct in the Dragon Age universe. How could I not fall for the lumberjack bird-cat dad who is doomed by the narrative because he’s part of a faction that will one day go underground to die when they start to go mad from the darkspawn taint inside him?
But I digress. Davrin is one of the best examples The Veilguard has of a character whose very personal story has long standing ramifications for the world of Dragon Age. As a Warden, Davrin knows his time is relatively limited, and feels a great deal of responsibility to protect those around him. He wants to ensure that he leaves the world better than he found it. The revelations he finds in his quest fundamentally shift how the Wardens will be viewed in the annals of history, but he doesn’t lose sight of the good those still living under the banner can do. All of this is delivered with a heartfelt story of a man and his bird-cat son learning to love and live with each other. Davrin’s story has some of the greatest range in The Veilguard, and it’s all elevated by the dashing man in the center (I’m sorry, I’m gonna thirst for my video game boyfriends).
25 / 38
Lace Harding could have easily been a throwaway party member in The Veilguard. The dwarven rogue started as a supporting character in 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition, and that’s a long time for fans to project an idealized vision of the mostly jovial scout in their minds. But Harding is so much more complex in The Veilguard, and a lot of it has to do with its willingness to examine the cracks in the happy-go-lucky attitude she’s been known for.
Harding becomes a centerpiece for some of the biggest reveals in dwarven lore Dragon Age has ever dropped, and as she uncovers truths about her people, her anger for what the dwarves have lost becomes central to her world. Things are changing for everyone in The Veilguard, and it often feels like Harding has no one to relate to as she carries heavy dwarven baggage on her back. Rage for what she and her people have lost doesn’t have to consume her, as justified as it might be. But one way or another, someone who once played the support role for the Inquisition becomes a pillar for the dwarven people to build upon. It’s inspiring to see.
26 / 38
Alistair has become such a focal point in the Dragon Age universe (some might argue too much so) that, on any given day, he could rank at the top of an Origins companion ranking. He starts out as a goofball who is just trying to cope with his tragic life, but depending on player choice, he can end up thrust into the limelight when he’d rather have a simple life fighting for a cause he cares about. Alistair’s complexities and different possible fates put him into so many quantum states in the Dragon Age universe that it doesn’t surprise me BioWare decided to say “fuck it” and write more stories about him in books and comics that firmly set him in one place in the universe, though they’ve done a better job keeping player choice consistent across each game than Leliana. He’s beloved for a reason, both by fans and clearly by BioWare.
27 / 38
It’s a shame that Vivienne, one of the only mages who isn’t opposed to the Circle of Magi, the mage prison masquerading as a school in the Dragon Age universe, wasn’t in Dragon Age II, the game that had the war between mages and their Templar keepers at the center of its story. As much as I disagree with Vivienne’s beliefs on a fundamental level, I can’t help but be drawn in by the nuance. Vivienne is a mage who fully admits that she and people like her are dangerous, and a system like the Circle could probably alleviate everyone’s problems, but not in its current form. Whereas Dragon Age II paints mages as an oppressed class of people (while also simultaneously believing that they are inevitably going to become threats to society no matter what you do), Vivienne’s view of the situation is far more complex, and it makes you wonder if the catastrophic events of Dragon Age II might have gone very differently if only someone like her had been in Kirkwall. As a person who plays a mage in all of these games, hearing her condescend to me when I say mages should be free still feels like a particularly bad case of tinnitus, but she at least is talking more sensibly about the situation than anyone else in the room, all while having to shoulder her own personal burdens. Dragon Age’s inability to sit with that nuance has been the undoing of a lot of its world-building. It needed a character like Vivienne two games ago.
28 / 38
Every friend group needs a silly guy. Emmrich, a necromancer with a skeleton assistant named Manfred, fills that role. Though raising the dead sounds like dirty, scary work (and not everyone on the team is thrilled by the notion), this mage is an eccentric, kind hearted, and often goofy old man who is a joy to be around. Though death and grief are universal concepts that could be part of any universe, Emmrich spends much of his time studying and celebrating death as a cultural concept within Thedas.
Some of the most memorable scenes in The Veilguard are the quiet moments when he regales you with stories about his fascination with death, how we face it, and how he maintains respect for those who are gone as he brings them back. But what does a person who deals in life and death feel about his own oncoming end? What do they think when the death in question is no longer something abstract and related to people they’ve never known? Emmrich explores those ideas in his work, but once The Veilguard makes him confront his relationship with death, he is catapulted to one of the most memorable mages we’ve ever met in Thedas.
29 / 38
Isabela starts out as a scheming pirate who is so cool, you want to be like her when you grow up. The rogue is cunning, promiscuous, and a bit brash, and she’s also one of the series’ best-written companions. Isabela is always found at the Hanged Man bar, tossing back drinks and ready to read anyone around her to filth, but she is nurturing, wise, and loyal to a fault…if you help her get there.
The pirate can leave the party if she and Hawke aren’t close enough by the end of Act 2, but if you’ve either shown that you’re just as much a free spirit as she is or have berated her for the errors of her disloyal ways, she shows back up in a big damn hero moment, ready to save the day. Then you have to fight for her life (or give her up, if you’re a bastard) and it’s all very romantic. While Isabela is technically an optional companion in Dragon Age 2, her actions play a big part in setting up the political turmoil happening in Kirkwall. When she’s not there, her absence is felt, and when she is there, she makes sure everyone knows she’s the star of the show.
Isabela’s role in The Veilguard is probably the least dramatic of all the previous party member cameos. She leads the Lords of Fortune regardless of whatever happened to her in Dragon Age II. The destination is good, but her dialogue is one of the more glaring examples of BioWare not practicing what it preaches regarding not treating specific choices as canon, given Isabela is assumed recruited and on decent terms with the Kirkwall crew. But she’s still a fun inclusion, and seems to have grown up a lot since we last saw her.
30 / 38
Like Lucanis, your opinion on Neve might vary depending on whether you help her save her home of Minrathous in the early hours of The Veilguard. But in both routes, there’s something compelling about watching the mage detective in her element. Neve knows the name of a lot of the people you meet on the streets of Minrathous. Even as the elven gods are blighting cities and some of the biggest revelations of the Dragon Age universe are raining down upon Rook and their team, Neve doesn’t lose sight of the people on the ground who will still be struggling if and when the Veilguard accomplishes their mission to stop the gods. The question is whether she wants to fight for them from the shadows, or become a beacon of hope to pave a new path in the city.
Neve is perhaps the most concise example of The Veilguard’s broader thesis. Where often the series shaves down conflict and progress into factions and choices nudged by the player, The Veilguard feels like the series finally believes in something, rather than just showing you a nuanced ideological battle and letting you choose which one deserves to be wiped from the face of Thedas.
Neve believes that the world can be better, and is willing to do whatever it takes to find that path forward. Oppression and the structures that allow it are not choices or debates in her mind; she is here to fight for the people of Minrathous, it’s just a matter of how. This world is changing, and there are people who will be written in the history books as those who charted the course. Neve may choose to omit herself from the official stories if she can, but she won’t sit idly by while those who benefit from the way things have always been try to direct how things will be.
31 / 38
Religious upheaval is a central theme of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and no companion embodies that more than Cassandra. She’s the first character the Inquisitor gets in their party, and she is immediately suspicious of you. As far as she can tell, you are a symbol of everything she knows of the world changing. If you’re unwilling to play along with her worldview, any potential friendship between the two of you can sour almost immediately. How is she supposed to support the Inquisition when the person at its center is a heretic? Her reckoning only unravels further as she learns that the organization she has followed for most of her life has been corrupt, oppressing mages in ways deemed inhumane by even Dragon Age standards. Cassandra is one of the most devout people we’ve met in a series full of radicals, and yet while she struggles with the truths laid before her, she doesn’t shy away from them in the end. It would be so easy for a weaker person to retreat, deny the truth, and become stagnant. Cassandra watches the world change and decides to change with it.
32 / 38
Across BioWare’s catalog, there probably isn’t a character with more emotional range than Merrill, the Dalish blood mage. When Hawke first meets her, she seems young and innocent, but it becomes clear she’s viewed in contempt by her elven clan. It becomes clear shortly after that she has been working with a demon and using the much-reviled blood magic. Even as she casts spells that would be taboo elsewhere in the world, she is still somehow one of the most light-hearted and humorous characters in the entire series. Merrill is the sweetest character in Hawke’s crew, even as she is berated by just about everyone else for her “crimes” of using blood magic. Though it would be easy to make her come off like an abused puppy, she is steadfast in her decisions, as she believes she can use this magic for the good of the Dalish people by restoring a piece of their history.
Merrill’s conviction leads her and those around her down devastating paths, and her story is one of the most frustratingly complex situations Hawke deals with in their story because every decision and outcome feels painful for everyone involved. Ultimately there is no happy ending for someone who consorts with demons, nor for people who distrusted her so much that they couldn’t let her face the consequences. But Merrill is subversive, tragic, and somehow, still a joy to know.
33 / 38
Dragon Age: Origins’ secret companion Loghain Mac Tir is, by all accounts, a reprehensible individual whose actions cost the lives of countless people on the way to recruiting him. The cost for adding him to your party is so high that most people never actually get to hear Origins’ villain out. Do I think his claims that he sabotaged the people of Ferelden to save his country are enough to exonerate him of his crimes? No. But I do find him compelling as a villain who, in a delusional patriotic mania, sought to scorch the earth and rebuild it in his image.
34 / 38
Throughout Dragon Age, the land of the Tevinter Imperium has been almost exclusively framed as a culturally homogenous, villainous place where mages rule without opposition, slavery is commonplace, and unspeakable evils made it the origin point of the Blight, one of the most ruinous phenomena in the universe. Our frame of reference for this perception, however, is largely from characters who were suffering at the ground level, at least until Dorian Pavus struts into view in Inquisition. By all accounts, Dorian should be thrilled with his setup in Tevinter. He’s the son of a powerful family, has been given every resource to nurture his magical talents, and is pretty much guaranteed a spot at the top of the country’s politics. But he is also his own man, and does not wish to cave to the life his family envisions for him. That includes standing proud as a gay man unwilling to continue his family’s bloodline, even as he is threatened with a magical take on conversion therapy at the hands of his own father.
Dorian escapes his home in Tevinter and is clearly jaded when he meets the Inquisitor. But as he watches the world change before him, how should he view his home country that, despite everything, he still loves? The heroes of the Dragon Age series have often fallen into cynical cycles of scorching the earth, as if they can’t conceive of a better option. Dorian Pavus, who’s been put through hell in Tevinter, could have easily been a cautionary tale reinforcing that his home country is just as terrible as everyone in the series has ever told us it is. But instead, he’s a shining beacon proclaiming that it doesn’t have to be this way. He is radical hope personified, living, breathing proof that history is defined by those who believe that a better world is possible.
In The Veilguard, Dorian is putting that belief into practice. He is a member of the Shadow Dragons revolutionary group, but he has his sights set higher. Depending on your choices, Dorian can ascend to the Archon throne in Minrathous. Having someone who cares about the people of Tevinter at the top feels like the natural conclusion to his story, and one of the more hopeful conclusions The Veilguard can leave off on. The elven gods have decimated Thedas, even after Rook defeats them, so it’s good to see someone who wants to build something better on top of the rubble finally have the power to do it.
35 / 38
Good ol’ Varric Tethras’ debut established him as a fan favorite and positioned him to become one of the longest-running characters in BioWare’s fantasy series. The dwarven storyteller starts out as a humble businessman looking for an expedition partner but quickly gets dragged into unprecedented times as the city of Kirkwall becomes a focal point for worldwide change. Varric’s ties to the city run deep, but as he becomes estranged from his family, he finds a new one in Hawke and the others. In the end, he’s left alone as the others flee the city, and he stays behind to tell their story to anyone who will listen. It’s funny to think about how what he has to deal with here is like child’s play compared to the tasks he undertakes in Inquisition and again in The Veilguard. But his greatness has small beginnings, and he’s only become greater since we met him as Hawke in Dragon Age 2.
When he shows up again in Inquisition, Varric has become a face for the Dragon Age series. I have a lot of love for the dwarven storyteller, but I think my appreciation for his story in Inquisition has only grown stronger. Varric has gone from a simple roguish businessman in Kirkwall to a teller of tales, recalling some of the biggest moments in history to anyone who will listen. He has become quiteworld-weary by the time of Inquisition, but he’s never lost hope. His personal questline isn’t world-shattering, but it’s a reminder that this man has been dragged through unprecedented times.
When The Veilguard begins, we find Varric still fighting against impossible odds, which speaks to his determination to save the world. He recruits Rook, believes wholeheartedly in their ability to stop Solas’ plan to tear down the veil, and cheers them on from an infirmary bed for most of the game. However, something about Varric’s role in the game seems off, at least initially. But what starts off feeling like a cheap trick on BioWare’s part to sideline the series’ longest-running consistent party member turns out to be a thematic pillar holding up the story of The Veilguard. Rook’s presence at the center of this story is an expression of Varric’s belief in people, and the way this all wraps up in The Veilguard’s final hours is a devastating and beautiful tribute to the storyteller who has been at the player’s side for over a decade. For me, Varric had always been a reliable confidant as I watched Thedas constantly change. After The Veilguard, he was a concise expression of how Dragon Age has changed for the better. A man who started out as a rogueish storyteller in the slums of Kirkwall watched history uncaringly unfold for decades eventually found himself swept up in adventures of his own, and those adventures made him believe in the people he would leave behind.
36 / 38
From the outset Morrigan, the Witch of the Wilds, is an enigma. She’s kicked out of her secluded life in the Korcari Wilds by her equally enigmatic mother and forced to learn about the rest of the world. Typically, she does so from a high horse, judging people affected by systems that were in place long before she was even born. It’s interesting to hear an outsider weigh in on things that have always been commonplace to most people in the Dragon Age universe, but it also exposes her ignorance about how shackles like the Circle of Magi’s mage prison come to be. Still, her words often seem prophetic, hinting at how the world will change in future games.
Morrigan always knew she was destined for something bigger than her isolation, but watching her uncover what that is throughout Origins as she stumbles confidently through a world she knows very little about is one of Dragon Age’s strongest narrative arcs. She ends Origins on her own terms, one way or another, and when we see her again in Inquisition, she has become the influential force she was always meant to be, but she has also learned to be caring and curious, and is still susceptible to that same unfortunate hubris. Morrigan is one of the most recognizable characters in Dragon Age, not because BioWare trots her out at every opportunity, but because when she is on screen, her presence always matters.
That is especially true in The Veilguard, as Morrigan once again appears to help the world change. While The Veilguard is being rightfully criticized for its lack of narrative carryover from previous games, Morrigan’s role in the fourth entry feels like the culmination of mysteries we’ve been looking for answers to since as far back as Origins. When she and Rook meet, Morrigan has found so much of the knowledge she has sought out, and all that new wisdom has brought with it humility and a desire to make up for past wrongs, all while maintaining a humanity that could easily be lost in someone who has seen and experienced so much. The Veilguard pretty succinctly wraps up most of Morrigan’s remaining mysteries (and ignores a few, seemingly for the sake of easy choice carryover), so whatever Dragon Age has in store for the future, she may finally get to rest. However, it’s not in her character to sit back while the world changes.
37 / 38
At first, Solas is one of the less remarkable characters in Inquisition’s roster. He’s characterized by his knowledge of Fade-related magic, has some cool hat tricks to show you in his early conversations, and altogether seems a bit smug and judgy. Things start to change, though, as he reveals he is the source of Big Bad Corypheus’ magic. He shows frustration with the ways of the modern world, his personal quests solidify and reinforce his anger at how flippantly people view spirits, and when all is said and done, he leaves the Inquisition without a word. Then it’s revealed why Solas feels like a person out of time: He is the Dread Wolf, an elven trickster god who has awoken to find himself written in history as a traitor to his people. Solas reveals in the Trespasser DLC that he barely viewed his friends in the Inquisition as people, and was using them to further his plan to tear down the Veil that separates the real world from the spirit realm and bring back the elves’ long-lost immortality. That all changed as he grew to care for the friends he made along the way, but his mission can’t bend to newfound sentimentality. Underneath Solas’ pompous exterior is a man ravaged by guilt for what he did several millennia ago. Should he succeed in tearing down the Veil he created, that old guilt will be replaced with a new one as he watches the world burn to correct his mistake.
In The Veilguard, it’s revealed that Solas’ crimes extend far beyond the Veil and his betrayal of the Inquisitor. Though the game no longer bears his name, Solas is the beating heart of Rook’s story, existing as a foil for the hero and also the trigger for the cataclysm that nearly swallows Thedas whole. But The Veilguard isn’t just about Solas’ present, it also dives deep into the elven god of lies’ past and reveals that his history is the history of Thedas. The well of Solas’ regret runs so much deeper than we ever knew, and having to face someone who is no longer hiding who he is means dealing with all the regret, shame, and conniving fuckery he’s capable of. After you’ve learned everything there is to know about Solas, you’re left with a choice of whether or not he can be redeemed, or if you even want to give him the opportunity. That there is such hotly contested debate among fans over whether Solas’ actions were justified speaks to the complexities of his views, and solidifies his spot as the most compelling party member the series has yet put forth.
38 / 38