Flutiebear: Rambling My Way Through Thedas

impressioniste:

DA Team, please let there be a badass lady warrior companion and an awesome male mage companion in DA3.

The warrior and mage classes are almost entirely gender exclusive in DAO/DAA/DA2. Almost every main warrior companion is male (except Aveline, fuck yes, Mhairi really doesn’t count) and almost every main mage companion is female (except Anders).

Male Warriors: Alistair, Oghren, Sten, Loghain, Carver, Fenris, Justice
Female Warriors: Aveline

Even if you count Shale, that’s still REALLY unbalanced.

Male Mages: Anders
Female Mages: Morrigan, Wynne, Velanna, Bethany, Merrill

From what I understand, Duncan was conceptualized as a mage, but they changed it (and kept the concept armor). Jowan was supposed to be a companion, but they cut him. Mhairi is a total fake-out. Still mad about Mhairi. Rargh.

We did have Finn and Sketch and Ariane but those DLCs are so short. Still, at least it’s an effort. DAA is a little better because it’s a much longer full expansion, and not just an extra ‘chapter’ of DLC. And they did give us Meredith and Orsino in DA2.

There’s really no reason for this discrepancy in a fantasy land where your companions are all unique people with special circumstances.

DA Team, Origins was the worst about this. You appear to have made an effort in the DLCs and then improved a little more in DA2. Could we maybe further improve with DA3? Progress!

While you’re right that there is some gender inbalance in DAO and DAA, I don’t think you’re being very fair to DA2. In fact, that was actually one of the things that struck me about the game the first time I played, that for every class there’s a male and a female companion option:

Rogue: Varric + Isabela
Warrior: Fenris + Aveline
Mage: Anders + Merrill

Conceivably the Hawke siblings could become gender unbalanced, but the Sibling isn’t considered a companion in the same way that the other six characters are. And yes, there’s Sebastian the DLC character, but of course now you’ve got Tallis as a DLC character too. Two DLC rogues, one of each gender.

You even see the same balance in the non-playable characters — Meredith and Orsino, for example, or the Act 2 villains Petrice and the Arishok. So I think DA2 offers exactly the kind of gender balance you’re looking for. I just hope they keep it alive for DA3.

(via impressioniste-deactivated20121)