Bioware’s lead writer David Gaider has harsh words for people complaining about Dragon Age: Inquisition character Dorian being gay.
First off, Gaider goes off on one site’s coverage from a community interview. While a fan just had a question about Dorian’s sexuality, an unnamed site has apparently changed it completely to ‘Bioware made a press release to announce it’, as if this was done for publicity.
Then Gaider points out that Dorian isn’t just defined by his sexuality, much like any other Dragon Age or Bioware character is not. As he points out, if that is all you care about from him, that is entirely from you.
Finally, Gaider points out that Dorian is not even the first gay character he has ever written. Sera is the first Dragon Age character to be gay, and outside of that universe, Bioware has already had characters like Cortez, Traynor, and Juhani.
I would add in that as a matter of agency and character customization, when Bioware added the option to play female Shepard in Mass Effect, but leaving much of the storyline (including Shepard’s attraction to women) intact, I would argue that that, as well, amounted to Gaider creating a gay character.
As a final salvo, when asked about EA catering to the LGBT for profit, Gaider points out the hypocrisy of this argument. Is catering to straight white guys any better than this? If we have to take that argument and make those assumptions about developers at all, I would say no. You can read Gaider's original tweets below.
Personally, I did not feel Bioware revealed Dorian in a way that was particularly pandering to a potential LGBT audience. Let me share our coverage of the Dorian reveal here, and you can decide for yourself if this was the case.
