Examining the Lack of Aspec Representation in Dragon Age (A Dragon Age Retrospective: Part 1)

Image description: A promo image for Dragon Age: Inquisition, my favorite game in the fantasy video game series, Dragon Age. Today, I'm beginning a retrospective of the game series I love and the reasons why being an aspec fan has been a bit of a struggle.

Back in 2024, I had plans to analyze the aspec representation (or lack thereof) throughout the fantasy video game series, Dragon Age, one of my favorite pieces of media of all time. I have been discussing characters with aspec tendencies in this franchise for a long time – see my numerous posts about Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Cole and Josephine or my mention of characters like Dragon Age II’s Sebastian – so the idea of discussing representation in the franchise is nothing new. However, the idea for the post was nevertheless greatly inspired by the announcement that Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the series’ fourth game, would have no aspec representation at all, something I did an entire post on at the time.

Because I was already thinking about the subject, I was planning to do the post then, but I thought it might be worthwhile to see what happened with The Veilguard before I did the post about the series as a whole. As it turned out, that was probably a good choice, not only because the game yielded a great deal to talk about when it comes to characters like Lucanis, whose mysteriously erased aspec identity was the subject of a post earlier this year, but because of what happened shortly after the game’s October 2024 release.

In January 2025, exactly three months after DATV’s release, fans received two major pieces of news regarding the game, the franchise, and Dragon Age’s future. The first was the news that DATV dramatically missed its sales predictions – having “engaged” (whatever that means) 1.5 million players, a hefty 50% miss from what it was projected to do. The second was the news that its developer, BioWare, was now shifting focus to the next Mass Effect game and thus was essentially shuffling or laying off the entirety of the remaining Dragon Age team.

As I discussed in my Lucanis post, this team was already significantly curtailed, and so this final dismissal of the remaining team struck many fans as the ultimate death blow to the franchise. Due to BioWare’s focus on Mass Effect, it’s likely any future Dragon Age titles won’t come to fruition for years, if they come at all. Furthermore, if they do, they will likely have an entirely different feel thanks to the developers we knew being dismissed, thus making many fans wonder if a future Dragon Age game would even feel like Dragon Age, something that was already very much a critique of DATV in the first place.

So, in my eyes, what was supposed to be my overview analysis of the series and its lack of aspec representation now carries with it an unexpected weightiness. Rather than a simple look at where we are and where we’ve been with hopes for the future, it now feels more like an overall series retrospective and a discussion of how much potential was squandered over the years. While this is disappointing on a number of levels, I think it’s nevertheless a worthwhile discussion to have.

Because this is, of course, a rather large undertaking, I will be presenting this post in two parts. This part is going to be something of an overview, discussing why I believe aspec representation in Dragon Age matters and discuss why I think it didn’t happen. The second part, which I will present in my next post, is going to explore the characters that I think could have or should have been aspec, or characters that the fandom postulates may have aspec vibes, both analyzing and honoring these characters, all of it done in my own unique style.

As I’ve said previously, Dragon Age belongs to the fans now and what we choose to do with it is important and valuable, including how we choose to look back on its legacy. The history of Dragon Age’s lack of aspec representation is undoubtedly disappointing and needs to be examined, but I choose to view these two posts as a celebration of what could have been as much as a critique of what wasn’t. So, whether you’re a fan of the franchise or not, I hope you’ll join me for this retrospective because I believe there is so much we can learn from the history of this franchise.

Spoiler warning! 

Minor spoilers for various elements of the Dragon Age series; MAJOR spoilers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard

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Why Representation in Dragon Age Matters

To start this post, I want to do two very important things – discuss a bit about Dragon Age as a whole and discuss a bit about aspec representation as a whole. To start with the former, as you likely know if you’ve read any of my previous posts discussing the franchise, Dragon Age is a fantasy video game series, set in the fictional world of Thedas. It’s a world full of magic and mythical creatures, but also one of conflict. While it is, of course, replete with fantasy elements, so much of the heart and soul of the game encourages us to think deeply about issues that are mirrors to the struggles of our own world.

For instance, the question of what to do about magic and its dangers makes us think about issues of freedom versus control in our own lives, while the way other races like elves are treated encourages us to think about the parallels in the real world. This also extends to discussions of gender and sexuality, something which the games and its extended universe of other tie-in media has done with varying degrees of success, introducing us to gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual, pansexual, and non-binary characters across its over 15-year history.

As I said, sometimes the implementation of these characters is uneven or leaves much to be desired; to that end, sometimes the inclusion of these characters inevitably leads to debates, even among the people who share the same identity as the character. But, for better or worse, they at least indicate that an attempt was made to represent these various identities, something which can’t really be said for aspec characters. That leads me to the next point of discussion that is essential for setting up this post: the notion of aspec representation itself.

As I often say, I never go into a piece of media expecting that it’s going to have aspec representation, and my enjoyment of a piece of media likewise isn’t dependent on it having canon aspec characters. However, in Dragon Age’s case, I believe the franchise has somewhat become known for its diversity and has been celebrated for it, which is a terrific thing, and so that makes the complete lack of aspec characters all the more glaring.

Something I’ve also said before is that when media otherwise prioritizes diversity I tend to scrutinize it more when it ostensibly chooses to ignore or even remove any chance for aspec representation because it feels more insulting. To me, this exact feeling has been present for a while when I look at Dragon Age as a franchise. However, it became even worse when we found out DATV wasn’t going to have any aspec characters at all, and was heightened even further when it seemed that one of its romancable companion characters, Lucanis, was originally supposed to be aspec, only to have that identity erased.

Something that was common to hear at the time this news broke (and in general, really) was that aspec fans could always have their “headcanons” – that is to say, their own thoughts and ideas about the world of Thedas, even if those things aren’t actually portrayed in any of the media. As a roleplay game series where player choices shape not only your own character’s destiny, but the fate of the other characters and the world around you, the games certainly are excellent places for this; I know I often headcanon my characters as aspec and I’m sure many other aspec fans do too.

Of course, headcanons are terrific and something I love being able to do, being able to use them to find escapism and representation in my own way. Similarly, there’s nothing wrong with looking at characters and headcanoning them as aspec, something I do frequently on the blog and derive a great deal of joy from, even when the character is not actually canonically aspec. However, there are frustrating limitations to only ever being allowed aspec headcanons rather than actual canon representation.

Because these characters have aspec tendencies but are not explicitly defined as aspec, there’s no way to actually treat these tendencies as anything more than “aspec vibes.” Furthermore, whenever these characters are relegated to the status of “headcanons” or left up to individual interpretation, it’s very easy to ignore these interpretations in favor of more mainstream ones. While headcanons are wonderful things, it means that these characters are never actually representation and instead serve as discourse. In my case, there are many characters that I personally see as aspec-coded that other fans can and often do disagree with – an especially pervasive issue when it comes to romancable characters.

Often times, fans dislike the idea that their favorite romance option might be on the asexual spectrum because that doesn’t fit their own headcanons, and as such they either aggressively ignore the headcanons of aspec fans, or remove aspec fans from the conversation entirely, falling back on the idea that if it wasn’t canon, then it wasn’t true and can be pushed aside. As mentioned earlier, we saw this happen a great deal when Lucanis’ writer Mary Kirby confirmed him to be demisexual, and many fans who romanced Lucanis chose to completely ignore this reveal or else dismissed it as a cheap attempt to explain away a lack of romance content for Lucanis in the game.

This to me is where Dragon Age really falls down when it comes to aspec representation, to the point of becoming somewhat problematic. Through its willingness to represent other identities explicitly all while seeming to deliberately avoid canon aspec representation, aspec fans are left in the position of having to forever defend our headcanons. This empowers other fans to always dismiss and ignore those headcanons as it suits them. Therefore, instead of being able to see ourselves and our identities in a character, aspec fans are left to see their identities torn apart in ugly internet discourse and fandom wars over shipping or romance content, both of which make the fandom feel like a place that doesn’t care about its aspec fans whatsoever.

Image description: Although this is an image of the Inquisitor - the main protagonist of the series' third game - facing down a dragon, this is also a good visual depiction of what I feel like when I have to face down aspec discourse in fandom spaces.

This is a shame for a number of reasons, especially when it comes to a game series that otherwise prides itself on its diverse representation and a studio that prides itself on allowing their LGBTQIAP+ employees to feel represented and seen. Even so, I’m sure it’s tempting to ask why any of this matters in the first place, a question I see asked a lot in various fandoms, not just in the Dragon Age fandom. While of course the old adage that representation is important is apropos here, I don’t think Dragon Age’s lack of aspec representation only hurts aspec fans, but rather hurts fans of all identities and backgrounds, and deprives them of what would otherwise be valuable experiences.

Something that is wonderful about representation isn’t just the fact that it allows people to see their own identities portrayed, but that it allows other people to see those identities portrayed too. This franchise is known for creating characters that have profound impacts on players, whether or not we share their background, and so I think it’s unfortunate that we will never see this type of profound storytelling be delivered through an aspec character. I can’t help but lament how valuable this representation could have been if only it had been allowed to exist, and this is why I think it’s important to explore this lack of representation as we look back at the franchise.

I also think this is important because, although there may never again be another Dragon Age game, the fandom is still alive and the franchise in and of itself may one day be revived in some way, shape, or form. If it is, these issues very well might still exist. Not to mention, even if Dragon Age itself has been shelved, there are still other projects at BioWare and beyond that could look to the franchise for inspiration – not to mention that the creative teams that worked on these games are still working on other games, whether in BioWare or elsewhere.

Therefore, this isn’t just a conversation about missed opportunity, nor is it a theoretical discussion about a franchise that is at the end of its life cycle; rather, it’s just another example of how aspec people are treated in fandoms and in storytelling that should serve as a cautionary tale when we look at how other games are created. This is likewise not merely an issue of a game series choosing not to have aspec characters – it’s bigger than that. It encompasses the way aspec fans are made to feel, the atmosphere in which stories are written, and the idea of erasure, all of which are things that go well beyond the idea of not having representation.

If I could summarize these issues, I would say that Dragon Age’s history of aspec failures constitutes what happens when representation is deliberately withheld, and that’s a far bigger problem. For example, more than just not writing aspec representation, we see plenty of instances where the aspec vibes of characters have been deliberately erased. Furthermore, there have been plenty of examples where the series has severely dropped the ball when it comes to respecting even the vague representation or space for headcanons it otherwise might have allowed.

While some of this is an inevitable part of fandom life and reflects more on the fandom itself than on the media, there are some instances where the media has encouraged this and I think that has to be explored. In so doing, I hope to not only point out why these things matter and should be discussed, but attempt to reframe – however minutely – the narratives surrounding these stories and their characters and to ask the most important questions about where these things ended up going wrong.

Would Aspec Representation in Dragon Age Ever Have Been Possible?

In the previous section, I mentioned how unfortunate it is that the incredible storytelling of the Dragon Age universe will never include an aspec character whose powerful story could have resonated with people of all kinds. While I do wholeheartedly believe that, part of me wonders if that ever would have happened, even if Dragon Age as a franchise had been allowed to continue for the foreseeable future. On some level, while I know aspec characters would have resonated with many people – both aspec and allosexual people alike – a larger part of me wonders if the fandom would have been receptive.

However, I don’t think it’s just the fandom that would have been a hard sell on this concept, but the developers as well. We know for a fact that there were aspec creatives in the Dragon Age team – including DATV’s director Corinne Busch, who identifies as grey-ace. Additionally, I’m sure there are many other aspec employees at BioWare, people who I’d like to believe are accepted and treated well as per the company culture that BioWare seemed proud to show off in previous blog posts. However, if we couldn’t even get aspec characters in the game where an aspec person was the director, how could we have gotten them in a game where Busch maybe wasn’t involved? Furthermore, what is the culture and attitude of the allosexual people on the team?

As I said, I’d like to believe that the Dragon Age team fostered a diverse and tolerant atmosphere, but there are some things I’ve seen that have led me to have doubts. For instance, one of the lead writers in the franchise, Trick Weekes, went on record to talk about the character of Solas in ways I feel reveal what is a not entirely aspec-friendly attitude within the writing process. Although I’m not certain if they were joking or being serious when they were quoted as saying this, after DATV came out, Weekes discussed what they think Solas’s kinks would be. [Warning: Spoilers and NSFW language in the screenshot below]

Image description: [NSFW language warning] A screenshot, obtained from Tumblr, of Trick Weekes's remarks about Solas. I seriously debated editing the screenshot to take out the more NSFW parts, but I eventually decided to present it in full (albeit in a small image) because I think what they said needs to be seen to fully understand the point I'm trying to make here.

While I am not trying to imply this is a bad thing, I am implying that (if this is truly how Weekes thinks of the character), it does paint the picture that Solas’s lead writer intended the character to be seen through a sexual prism. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily have to change the idea of aspec headcanons related to him and his romance, but in my opinion, it does make them a bit harder. If we take Weekes’s statement at face value, then this type of thought process was present in the way Solas – and potentially other characters – were written, making it all the more unsurprising that more aspec-friendly storytelling was eschewed.

More than that, however, the trajectory of the franchise likewise makes this feel like something of an uphill climb. The earlier media might have perhaps been too early for good aspec representation and the later media in the series might have been too concerned with what discourse could have potentially followed to even risk trying. I also wonder if maybe the subtlety of previous representation versus the more overt attempts at representation we see later in the series would have made any potentially aspec representation fall flat, meaning that it could have done disastrously, something I discussed a few weeks ago when I explored Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s non-binary character Taash.

In that post, I explored why I think Taash’s representation ultimately misses the mark of what the writers were hoping to portray with their story. Taash is proof that The Veilguard’s attempts at representation feel a bit like reinventing the wheel and making it square, so if you’re curious on my thoughts about why their representation doesn’t work and why that’s important – for non-binary identities and also for identities of all kinds – I highly recommend checking that post out. Something I postulated in that post is the same question I’m still considering now: when it comes to representation, is it better to have overt, obvious, in-your-face representation that maybe doesn’t mesh with everything else around it but is unmistakably there, much like DATV’s “square wheel” representation? Or is it better to have subtle representation that fits with the world and the story, but which is vague enough that it’s easy to dismiss?

In my estimation, I would usually say that I’d rather have a hundred instances of varied and nuanced “round wheel” representation than one big instance of “square wheel” representation that is so poorly executed that it makes people hate the very idea of it. But of course, that isn’t always the easiest path forward either, as I’ve pointed out numerous times in this post and on the blog in general, and this unanswerable question is part of what makes me think that aspec representation in the games may have not been an easy battle.

Despite the numerous characters that could be seen as vague representation or characters who could fit as aspec representation with very little effort, none of them are canon representation; at best, maybe a few of them can be considered “word of God” representation, but even then, that’s not a guarantee. So although they are terrific instances of “round wheel” representation, it’s entirely too easy for fans to dismiss the aspec tendencies these characters may have and to steamroll fans who see them as examples of aspec identities, which is as undesirable as the results of the more “square wheel” representation. I’ll discuss these things and the characters they apply to in my next post.

In general, headcanoning characters is something of a slippery slope, because it’s easy to make a case for almost every character in a given piece of media being aspec or not aspec, just as it’s possible to imagine them as any other identity under the sun as it pleases you. As I said earlier, this is a great thing and it allows fans of a piece of media to create representation for themselves where none might otherwise exist, but again, it makes it difficult to ever really be able to claim a character as one thing or the other because it becomes so easy for people to dismiss these ideas as just the whims of fans.

But, for as much as I love the potentially aspec characters of Thedas and as excited as I am to analyze them, I don’t believe aspec representation in Dragon Age had to be limited only to a character here or there. Rather, I believe making the franchise more aspec-friendly could have happened on a number of other levels, and I hope that maybe other games learn from Dragon Age’s example when it comes to other instances of accessibility and can do what the team here either could not or would not do.

How Dragon Age Could Have Done Representation

Back when I did my initial impressions post about DATV, I was of course disappointed by the announcement that none of the companion characters would be explicitly aspec. However, I attempted to give the game the benefit of the doubt because aspec characters aren’t the only way a game can be made to have aspec representation. Even without any explicit visible representation, the game could have extended its thoughtful systems to aspec people, the way it took non-binary and trans identities into account.

For example, in the character creator of the game, you were able to select your character’s pronouns and allow those pronouns to be different from the gender you otherwise assigned your character, allowing for a depth of roleplay experience and truth that I’m sure many non-binary and transgender fans appreciated. Although I can’t see the game having you pick your sexuality in the same way and indeed that might be a little strange, I think it would have been interesting to at least let your character pick romantic and/or sexual preferences, or even have an option to turn that off for your character entirely.

As we’ve discussed numerous times throughout this post, while I can of course headcanon my characters as aspec or simply not romance someone, I wish Dragon Age would take into account how an aspec character might have an entirely different experience within the world and allow us to craft that for ourselves. Even just a line of dialogue here and there or a conversation with a random character in the world could have gone a long way to showing that the world of Thedas has room for aspec people too.

Speaking of the romances, I also think Dragon Age has done a repeated disservice to aspec fans over the years thanks to a mechanic of the romance system. Although I haven’t seen if this is necessarily true in all of the romances for Veilguard, in many of the romance storylines across all of the games, your romance can only really be “confirmed” through a sex scene. Although some of these scenes are very tastefully done and can still be aspec-friendly, the fact that this has to be a mechanic of the romance at all is a little frustrating, especially when it can’t be opted out of.

While this would have of course been a bit difficult, as it would have required extra writing, animation, and programming, I wish there had been a way to confirm your romance selection without having to have sex with your partner. In an ideal world, I would have loved to see this go a step further and let there be a conversation between your character and their love interest about why they don’t want to have sex with them but nevertheless still want to be with them. This is something that could have existed only for fans who needed or wanted that option, allowing people who want sex in those romance paths to have it but giving those of us who don’t want it to not be forced to take that path.

Honestly, this mindset is something that I think permeates a lot of the examples I’m going to give in this post and the next one. While it’s frustrating that no aspec representation exists in the game series, I find it even more frustrating that basic respect for aspec identities is absent too in many cases. Throughout much of the franchise history, we are forced to take a very specific path and have no way of expressing ourselves otherwise, and it feels as if the developers were making assumptions about their players in ways that often feel quite insulting.

I’m not asking for the game to pander to me or create things entirely for my benefit – and, as I said in a previous Dragon Age themed post, if I’m really that bothered by the sex scene in a romance, I always have the option of just not choosing to romance anyone. But that is beside the point. The real point is that, in these diverse games about choice, there doesn’t seem to be a way to choose not to experience them through a sexual lens. There’s nothing wrong with the developers seeing things through their own sexual prism, as I mentioned earlier with the Trick Weekes example. There’s nothing wrong with other players choosing to see their characters and their world-states through that prism either. But when the game’s mechanics are designed so that it’s difficult for me to choose to not see things through that prism, that’s where I tend to get frustrated.

As you’ve heard me say a million times before, these things do not exist in a vacuum, and when the world of Thedas is made into a sexual place where no one can opt out of sexual content, it makes me feel the need to opt out of the fandom that has sprung up around it, and that’s truly an unfortunate thing. How can we as aspec fans have our headcanons and feel respected if the games we love don’t even respect us enough to give us that leeway? While there’s nothing that can be done about the games now that they’re done and out in the world, I hope the ideas of more inclusive choices and systems in video games is something we can see more of in future titles of all kinds.

Aspec representation doesn’t have to be overcomplicated in this way and it could have been baked into the fabric of Dragon Age if the team was willing to do so. We could have had new ways to express ourselves and new stories to tell, if only they had been willing to take the risk. In a world known for its unflinching debates about all sorts of facets of life and the ability to express your opinions about the world around you, I think the options were far more limited than most of us ever realized. This all becomes even more ironic for a game series like Dragon Age, which seemed to want us all to break out of our limitations and yet kept us stuck in these ways, which is why I think this topic deserves to be explored.

Image description: An image of the party fighting a dragon in the first game in the series, Dragon Age: Origins

Over the years, a lot has changed in the Dragon Age series. What started off as a single dark fantasy game with a silent protagonist in 2009 became an entire franchise, growing as time went on. From better graphics to next generation consoles to open world concepts and so much more, the series was always evolving and changing, even as the studio that made it was changing too – for better or for worse. But the thing that remains constant in the world of Thedas and the world of Dragon Age is that it has always been populated by diverse and interesting characters that add color to the world.

To that end, my next post is going to be all about these characters. I am sincerely looking forward to showcasing some of the characters that I think could have been aspec if the game had allowed such a thing, once again exploring the ways this could have been impactful. These characters may constitute bad examples of aspec vibes or great ones, examples of where the games did well or where they did poorly, but they’re all amazing characters nevertheless and they all deserve to be explored.

Respecting aspec vibes may not be something that always happened in the fandom or in the games, but on my blog and in my own interpretation of Dragon Age’s legacy, there will always be room for these characters, these headcanons, and these discussions. No matter what happens with Dragon Age, these characters and their stories will always be with me, and so I hope you’ll join me next week as I take a look at the potentially aspec characters of Thedas and why they matter. Until then, bear your blade and raise it high.