Summary
- Religion is sidelined and written around in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
- Suddenly nobody is devout, and everyone believes Rook without question.
- It’s very contrived.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a game with plenty of narrative hand-waving regarding subjects like race relations, slavery and personal conflict. Another criticism cropping up more frequently in the two months since the game’s release is how religion has been sidelined and written around despite once being a central pillar of the series’ lore.
Dragon Age mirrors the Middle Ages of our own world in that much of the preexisting conflict in the series’ lore is based on religion. For example, the tension in southern Thedas between sequestered mages and their heavy-handed Chantry captors. Or how the Dalish exist because of an Exalted March against their homeland by the Orlesian Chantry. There’s the importance of the Qun, which is extremely sacred to the Qunari until suddenly the Antaam have no qualms about following ancient Elven gods despite their inherent mistrust of magic. In Dragon Age: Origins, we literally go and collect the ashes of a messianic figure to save an ally from a fatal sickness.
In these games, faith is constantly being referenced by the characters. Andrastianism, the elven gods, the Qun—these are major aspects of characters we interact with in the first three Dragon Age games. The main plot of Inquisition is about an Andrastian holy war against demons, for crying out loud.
Religion Has Taken A Backseat
As highlighted by TheBigShowMe and Reiichiroh in two separate threads on Reddit, this is not the case in The Veilguard. The appearance of two of the Evanuris should have faith-shattering consequences for the people of Thedas. Yet, we never get to witness these consequences. Faith is mentioned by a tiny number of characters, usually elves. There’s no massive crisis of faith that causes unrest or violence. These aren’t non-religious societies, many of the characters we met previously in the series were devout and the revelation that their religion is false would shatter their entire being.
Speaking of elves, the Veil Jumpers (and other Dalish) are willing to forsake two of the entities they’ve been worshipping for generations to follow Rook, who at best is a random person and at worst is an agent of Fen’Harel, a god they’ve been warned against trusting their whole lives. It just doesn’t add up, and it reeks of narrative contrivance.
“It’s bad writing how everyone in the world knows about everything instantly and is just fine with the two primal gods rampaging. Your team and your task should have been met with more nuance and disbelief,” writes the aforementioned Reiichiroh. The poster is completely correct, the non-player characters of The Veilguard are devoid of their own personalities, instead blindly following and believing everything Rook says. Of course, the dialogue doesn’t let you lie to them either and perhaps they have become self-aware enough to realise Rook is now Fletcher Reede.
It’s a bizarre writing decision too, because you’re fighting against deities in The Veilguard. It was the perfect game to make religion a central theme. The Chantry should see the emergence of two evil elven gods as justification for their oft-criticised Exalted March against the Dales, and should rally forces against their old enemies. The elves should be torn on whether to stand against their gods, especially given that they should be facing hostility from people who blame them for the atrocities being committed by Ghilan’nain and Elgar’nan.
Naturally, none of this is explained in the narrative and everyone helps Rook save the day unquestioningly. Hurray for Thedas.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.
