How was Dragon Age a dark Fantasy?

[Vern5]

Ok, I think the disconnect is that those of us on the other side are arguing that "If the game exhibits events that are bad and continue to be bad with relentless frequency and magnitude, then that game is dark." is horror. Dark, as it applies to fantasy, is merely the pervasive inclusion of mature themes. So a game can still be dark while the protagonist has the ability to exert agency on the situation.

Did it really feel Dark to you? Was Dragon Age: Origins the darkest game you have ever played and the darkest setting you have ever experienced? Be completely honest now.

 

[Vern5]

Crap. double post.

 

[Araethuiel]

Spoiler

Their god abandoned them (twice, as morrigan comments at one point), yet they still cling to him with all their fervour... another nation worships dragons. Not so bad? Those dragons happen to be the archdaemons.

They have magic users, all magic users, either kept in the Tower (gilded prison), made Tranquil (essentially having their soul destroyed) or killed outright because they suspect those mages have made pacts with Daemons for power.

The stuff of magic, Lyrium, drives people insane and/or demented after repeated exposure (the templar outside the Denerim Chantry). Even the supposedly (very) resistant dwarves get affected.

When you dream your soul goes to the Fade, till you wake up. Daemons live there. Heaven has been destroyed, made black and ruined forever, and the Fade seems to be Hell now, pretty much.

Darkspawn invading a totally unprepared nation, and that nation's rulers' reactions (betrayal, civil war, not uniting to their country's defense). The result? Ferelden gets pretty much swallowed up by blight.
The darkspawn eat the dead, and any females they find they try and turn them into brood mothers. Their methods are described in quite some detail in the passageways leading up to that fight.
Speaking of which, the darkspawns'/daemons' fleshy taint stuff they leave lying around.

Origin stories. Rape, betrayal, murder, more betrayal (human noble, your whole family is betrayed and murdered, right down to the last child. the others are just as bad, or worse.)

Grey wardens, making the ultimate sacrifice to kill the Archdaemon.
If you survive the joining, the taint is still going to kill you. Just not instantly. It's like cancer, only with darkspawn voices.

The Tevinter Imperium, a whole nation of blood mages.
The secret to making Golems. The story behind the werewolves. Connor (that whole story arc).

In most Fantasy settings I've seen, the enemies are often black and/or red (clothing/armour/weapons/buildings), spiky, hell-bent on killing everyone not aligned with them and fond of betraying those that are. In da, EVERYone seems to be this (Maybe not spiky as such, but still...) even the Warden if you choose it (after beating loghain, you can betray alistair and have loghain join you. Made more traitor-y if you're romancing alistair at the time)
I'd call Dragon Age "dark", because to me, there are several thematic similarities to Warhammer 40k. Lots of betrayal, a massively oppressive church to an absentee god, enemies that were once men, who fell from grace and are now twisted, blasphemies against nature... both settings have all this and more.
If anyone knows a more grimdark-filled setting outside of actual horror, I'd be glad to learn of it...

Whether or not you consider it a "dark" fantasy or not is entirely your own opinion. I'm of the opinion that yes, it is a dark fantasy (whatever the hell that's meant to mean anyway)
But not really enough to have a hype built up around it based on that.
Heh, sorry for the loooong post, I tend to ramble on.

 

[badreaper74]

I don't think its really "dark fantasy" its just not really "high fantasy". The way i here it is high fantasy is your Lord of the Rings type. Elves are held in high regard, wizards serve as honored advisors, everyone gets along peacefully and overcomes adversity and old hatred to make sure that the evil force is dead at the end of the day. Where as in Dragon age you have the elves living in the ghettos, mages serving life in prison, and people get over old hatreds by killing the ones they hate. I think when they say dark fantasy there talking about the world in general rather then the characters and what choices they make. Face it after two games Thedas is probably not a place to visit. Well thats what i think they mean. Take it or leave it

 

[Slycne]

Ok, I think the disconnect is that those of us on the other side are arguing that "If the game exhibits events that are bad and continue to be bad with relentless frequency and magnitude, then that game is dark." is horror. Dark, as it applies to fantasy, is merely the pervasive inclusion of mature themes. So a game can still be dark while the protagonist has the ability to exert agency on the situation.

Did it really feel Dark to you? Was Dragon Age: Origins the darkest game you have ever played and the darkest setting you have ever experienced? Be completely honest now.

Dark, yes. It would be kind of silly for me to be defending that interpretation if I didn't. Darkest, no.

For me there is a distinction between dark and horror, horror has a distinct feeling of insufficiency faced with inevitability. Like I would say Dead Space is a dark game, but I wouldn't jump to classify it as horror. So all definitions aside, I can totally see saying that Dragon Age isn't a horrific game, but I don't that excludes it from being dark.

 

[Araethuiel]

Badreaper, you have a valid point. Hadn't thought of it that way

 

[Vern5]

Ok, I think the disconnect is that those of us on the other side are arguing that "If the game exhibits events that are bad and continue to be bad with relentless frequency and magnitude, then that game is dark." is horror. Dark, as it applies to fantasy, is merely the pervasive inclusion of mature themes. So a game can still be dark while the protagonist has the ability to exert agency on the situation.

Did it really feel Dark to you? Was Dragon Age: Origins the darkest game you have ever played and the darkest setting you have ever experienced? Be completely honest now.

Dark, yes. It would be kind of silly for me to be defending that interpretation if I didn't. Darkest, no.

For me there is a distinction between dark and horror, horror has a distinct feeling of insufficiency faced with inevitability. Like I would say Dead Space is a dark game, but I wouldn't jump to classify it as horror. So all definitions aside, I can totally see saying that Dragon Age isn't a horrific game, but I don't that excludes it from being dark.

But that's the thing. It has elements that could make it so very dark and edgy but rarely comes forth and just shows it to the player during gameplay. It's just so strange that, in a game with so many wonderful pieces of really Dark lore, Bioware almost seemed to be restricted to only referencing most of that terribleness through the Codex rather than put it in plain sight.

 

[Trolldor]

it's not really a dark fantasy since there isn't really a horror element at all and that is what Dark Fantasy is, Fantasy and Horror combined

Well... Broodmothers...

Yeah, I think Boordmothers sum up my response to this quite nicely.

The problem is that this was minor.
For the most part you're just killing bandits and big fuck-off spiders.

It has overtones of 'mature' fantasy, and elements of dark fantasy.

For example, Morrigan's Character Quest is creepy as all fuck on paper. The execution, however, makes it more like LOTR.

DA:O was probably the darkest RPG we've seen in a while for PC/Consoles.

 

[Exort]

Because of the persistent gore. I mean, ketchup.

Lol!

OT: I suppose they were trying to bill it as different than your standard JRPG? But really, I find the Shin Megami Tensei games to be far darker than these. DA:O has a little too much talk of sex and griffons to be all that dark imo.

I remember talking with Wynne near the end-game. I could act like a child and go "does this story have griffons in it?", and keeping asking about griffons over and over until her story was over...I was laughing uncontrollably at the thought of my Warden being so childish.

Yea, I remember you could say something like the Gray warden should flank the dark spawn not go head on. Also in the story Wynne said there were no death and you can reply there is always death in war.

 

[Something Amyss]

I thought "Dark fantasy" was just another way of saying "crapshack world."

That certainly seems to fit.

 

[Denvarte]

The fact that the only definite evil is the darkspawn and everything else is shades of grey, making it different from "normal fantasy" where everything is straight cut.

But really why does that need it's own genre? Why can't it just be "Fantasy" and then we'll understand that some plots are different than others but aren't just other genres.

 

[Anah'ya]

By that, we can easily see that DA does not fit the definition. Who's right in the end? I suppose we both are. I guess it just depends on what criteria you use to establish your definition of Dark Fantasy. And by doing that, we can make just about anything fit either definition, if we try hard enough.

I happily agree and have to add that this was a pleasant discussion to have. On that note, I should delve a little deeper into "Dark Fantasy" as defined with a heavy mix with horror (so far all the "horror" I read I would not call Dark Fantasy, though I suppose if I think about it... hmm.

Anyway. I digress.

Something I will point out though before I take my leave here: The Dragon Age books were not written by an outsider, but by David Gaider. I would agree, in a heartbeat, on video game tie in books written by outside authors (Halo, Assassins Creed, etc...), but BioWare kept the writing of the novels with their own writers, which convinced me to snatch them up.

*tips her hat and scurries off*

 

[Hader]

Dark Fantasy? Darkspawn. They share the "Dark" part. Teehee.

did you miss the fact that Grey Wardens never live more than 20 or 30 years after becoming a warden? or the fact that mages are highly susceptible to demon possession? or the exact nature of how Grey Wardens die when they get old enough? or the fact that almost everyone in the entire world is a total prick? it may not have been A Song of Ice and Fire dark, but it was still pretty dark.

Well that's because everyone is either a human (and we all know humans are douchebags), elves who are really pissed off at humans for being doucebags, dwarves who are shorter douchebags, and darkspawn who are really a happy lot but have this problem with the drugs the Archdemon deals em. Then there is the Qunari, who are so reasonable, but of course the power-loving humans and their Christian-esque Chantry hate them for being so good at everything they do and being different about it.

In a nutshell!

 

[Timmibal]

You do realize that if Dragon Age: Origins had focused on those 'details' within the game, made them the forefront of the story rather than a side-dish, people like me wouldn't be able to deny its Darkness. If Dragon Age really had been Dark, then nobody would have been able to ignore the obvious amounts of dark content because it would have been the first thing anyone saw once they started the game.

This seems to be your primary issue against accepting the world of DA as 'dark' fantasy. I don't have the links to hand, but I remember a number of discussions with the BW devs where they bemoaned the limitations of the engine in portraying a lot of the nastier aspects of the world (Lyrium addiction was the primary example, but I think others were mentioned.)

I don't think anyone's disputing that the game did not explore the darker aspects of the world in depth, but I believe that was a limitation of gameplay rather than deliberate omission on the part of the writers.

 

[Saelune]

I read the skill books in Morrowind. THATS dark fantasy. DA is not dark. Its "realistic" as far as the fantasy setting goes. It seems like a more plausible one comparible to our world, than say, Final Fantasy.

 

[Emurlahn]

Snip

To both of you: What you're thinking of is low fantasy or Sword and Sorcery, not dark fantasy. Dark fantasy is something that mixes elements of horror and fantasy, like Stephen King's Dark Tower series, or most of HP Lovecraft's better works. Low fantasy/Sword and Sorcery is stuff like Conan the Barbarian, Sword of the Berserk, and the average D&D campaign as run by roll-players, who are not to be confused with role-players.

That is mostly right, but Dark Fantasy is split up in two parts, where Dark Tower and Lovecraft represents one part of it, the horror/fantasy cross, the other part is a collection of parts of the genres Sword and Sorcery, Urban and Heroic. While not all in those genres is Dark Fantasy some of it is.
And I would say that Berserk is definitely Dark Fantasy, while Conan is Heroic/Sword and Sorcery.

 

[Loonerinoes]

People think of so many damn things when they use the term 'dark fantasy'. A lot of people think it should mean 'The world is shit, no hope exists' and in that respect - no, DA:O definately was *not* dark fantasy. Others think dark fantasy should automatically mean something ala cthulu and that god forbid you should use Tolkien-esque tropes, in which case again - no, DA:O was not in a dark fantasy setting.

But if by that one means it's a fantasy setting, that does not merely rely on constantly conjuring its causes from the ether and usually has the causes with a negative theme (for example, I loved that you got to find out how Darkspawn come to this world in a perfectly concrete, yet utterly horrifying, fashion) then yes - in that sense DA:O is a 'dark fantasy' setting.

Frankly, to quote Flemeth: "Names are pretty...but useless." For me DA:O uses high fantasy elements, but puts them in a setting that is not quite as whimsical as most other high fantasy settings and instead uses a darker spin. And that's fine by me I think. Heck, if I remember during an interview Bioware even kind of backtracked from the 'dark fantasy' title and said they felt it's more like 'somehwere between dark and high fantasy' for them.

 

[Zom-B]

Definitions were never really required since DA:O does not feel like a Dark Fantasy while one is playing it.

How does it not? Reading through this thread, posters have given numerous examples of where the story has darker themes - be it rape/sexual assault, horrific mutation, possessions ,moral ambiguity and scenes of bleakness.

I think you, like all the other posters who desperately want to defend Dragon Age as Dark Fantasy, are having a difference of opinion and definition with the rest of us.

While all the things you mention are "dark", they are not dark in the classic sense of Gothic or horror writing. I won't dispute that much of DA has a darker tone, but it's really only a veneer over a fairly standard High Fantasy tale, and your and others excessive cribbing from Wikipedia doesn't change that fact.

If I may, I'll go through the things you list point by point:

1. Rape/sexual assault- while horrible crimes, not the right kind of darkness we are looking for. This are simply terrible acts committed by terrible people.

2. Horrific mutation- I'll show my ignorance on this one and admit I'm not familiar with the instances in the DA games that concern this. If we're talking about the darkspawn and their various means of reproduction, it's a pretty standard corruption style genesis of life.

3. Posessions- This I would totally agree with, but it's not enough to bring the whole canon into the gothic realms for me.

4. Moral Ambiguity- Political intrigue and spotty moral choices do not make for Dark Fantasy on their own. I never felt in my playthrough of Origins that any of my choices were truly ambiguous. It was more like Good, Bad, A little less Good.

5. Bleakness, scenes of- Sure, there was bleakness. Unfortunately, in most High Fantasy stories, where I would put DA, the whole setting is usually undermined by the fact that before we ever read one word or hear one line of dialogue, we know that there will be a happy ending. So while things my seem bleak, in the end, we know that Good will triumph over Evil and all will be well. As it was in DA:O. One of the reasons I gave up on the fantasy genre was because of this exact problem. The only books of recent memory that have strayed from that tired old formula have been George RR Martin's books, and we all know he's doing his best Robert Jordan impression at the moment, so I never expect to see a concluding novel written by GRRM. Regardless, I never found Origins to be bleak at all. Sure, there was tragedy and some scenes of desolation, but overall, I knew, that the outcome of the storyline would be rainbows and puppies for everyone after the big, bad blight was driven back. And it was.

However you slice it, it's up to you. You and others see it as Dark Fantasy. I don't. We'll have to agree to disagree, as the criteria for the "Dark Fantasy" genre is so unrefined that we can make just about any fantasy story fit it, if we really want to.

 

[Slycne]

as the criteria for the "Dark Fantasy" genre is so unrefined that we can make just about any fantasy story fit it, if we really want to.

I think that the term Dark Fantasy is credited as being coined by both Charles L. Grant, who wrote predominately horror, and Karl Edward Wagner, who wrote predominately Sword & Sorcery, is extremely telling of the situation, and why there is such a disconnect between viewpoints.