Reader Question Day #22 ADDENDUM – further thoughts on Dragon Age Origins
Apropos of our recent discussion on Dragon Age Origins, someone asked what choices I made in my playthrough of the game. Well, here they are – though note that of course this contains massive spoilers for Dragon Age Origins and its DLC if you haven’t played them.
After trying the various origin stories, I settled on the female elf mage with the default name and appearance. This caught my fancy because of the dramatic potential the character arc offered. After all, it’s not surprising that a human or dwarven noble would rise to lead Ferelden against the Blight – it’s what he (or she) was trained and born to do. But in the world of Dragon Age, an elf and a mage is doubly outcast, and the female elf mage looks like a harmless slip of a girl. Yet by the end of the game, this harmless slip of a girl would have defeated demons in their own realm, dared the darkness of the Deep Roads and returned to crown a dwarven king, thrown down a high dragon, rallied ancient enemies to stand united against the Blight, defeated Loghain Mac Tir in single combat, and plunged a sword into the skull of an archdemon.
That was what caught my attention – what kind of experiences would it take to transform a timid elven apprentice mage into the feared and respected Warden-Commander of Ferelden?
(This is partly what I mean by agency – a computer RPG needs to offer both an illusion of control and a sense of ownership in the player characters.)
So what key choices did this female mage make during the game?
-She tried to help Jowan escape from the Circle, since I decided that she would believe him falsely accused of blood magic.
-She refused to kill either Isolde or Connor, and instead saved the mages of the Circle solely so they could send her into the Fade to battle the demon that had control of Connor.
-She talked Zathrien into repenting and freed the werewolves from their curse.
(Needless to say, I put a lot of skill points into Coercion.)
-She destroyed the Anvil of the Void because she thought it evil.
-She crowned Bhelen king of the dwarves becuase she thought the dwarven caste system stupid.
-She fell in love with Alistair.
-She killed Loghain at the Landsmeet and made Alistair king, and managed to continue her relationship with Alistair while marrying him to Anora. (Again, Coercion.)
-She accepted Morrigan’s offer, and had Alistair impregnate Morrigan. This was mostly because I wanted to play “Awakening” with the same character, rather than a new one.
Anyway, I think those were all the major choices I made during the game. At some point I may replay it and make different choices to see what happens, but that probably won’t be for a while. I have books to write first, y’see. 
-JM
