Level One: A Dragon Age Origin Story

I’m a video game nerd. Give me an immersive RPG and I’ll dungeon-delve for hours, days, weeks… We’re not gonna talk about how many hours I’ve logged fighting dragons and avoiding arrows-in-knees in Skyrim.

One of the first games I really, really sunk my teeth into was Dragon Age: Origins. Confession: I didn’t get into gaming until I was in my twenties. I grew up in a very '90s, very progressive, very “video games rot your brain” household.

Dragon Age: Origins, then DA:II, were some of the first games that I fell hard for (unsurprisingly, the Mass Effect series from the same studio was another of my first loves). I remember DA: Inquisition being the first game I waited eagerly for, the first game that I purposefully bought a new console for. DA:I was everything I hoped for. I loved it and thought it a strong third installment.

Like many fans, I waited eagerly (for a decade!!) for DA:IV. I was fine with the waiting—I’d rather the studio get it right than rush it.

When Dragon Age: The Veilguard premiered, I was in a financial position that couldn’t afford the new game (and new console). I had to wait. And wait. And wait.

While I waited (and waited. And waited), I watched the discussion around DA:V grow. There was some of the expected discourse—namely, bigots crying about diversity—but even in circles that I’ve found to be accepting, I found disappointment. Disappointment that, they said, boiled down to the writing.

Eventually, I did get the game—and now I’ve been slowly playing my way through it. Not binging, not racing. Just easing into it, bit by bit, like I’m settling into an old world that’s changed while I was away.

Now, listen—I’m not gonna sit here and pretend Veilguard is the greatest Dragon Age game ever made. I’m having fun, sure, but I wouldn’t put it above Origins or Inquisition. I saw someone online say the issue isn’t that it’s bad—it’s that it doesn’t feel like Dragon Age. And honestly? That hit. If you forget it’s part of the series and play it as its own thing, it actually works better. There’s something to that, and it’s part of why the dissonance caught me off guard.

Chapter Two: A Cerulean Sea and a Suspiciously Happy Ending

I’m gonna switch gears here. Stay with me, I promise that this is related.

One of my favorite books of all time is The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. I cannot overstate how much this book means to me. It filled a hole that a book-that-shall-not-be-named (written by a TERF-who-shall-not-be-named) left as I grew up and saw the problems in it (ah, sheltered white privilege). Cerulean Sea changed me on a level I didn’t know I could reach—let alone by an author I’d never read before.

So when its sequel, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, showed up at my local bookstore, you know I grabbed it right then and there. I took that baby home and I read it.

Just like its predecessor, I read it slowly. This wasn’t the kind of book you devour (like something by Xiran Jay Zhao or Roshani Chokshi—both of whom I also highly recommend). This was the kind of book you sip, like herbal tea. You go slowly to catch all the notes, whereas Zhao and Chokshi are meant to be obsessively devoured—like the perfect sandwich after a summer day at the pool. Each is perfection in its own way, but they’re consumed differently.

As Somewhere Beyond the Sea continued the story of Linus, Arthur, and their children, I found myself becoming…skeptical.
Spoilers ahead.

As the book wound down, I caught myself thinking: Klune is setting up for a happy ending—and yet there are so many pages left! Every bookworm knows this feeling: too many pages for this to be the real climax. Something bad is gonna happen.

I started speculating. Maybe Lucy gave into his devil-bestowed powers. Maybe he created a fake reality, and Arthur would have to bring him back with a hard, painful lesson.

But that’s not what happened.

In the book, this was the real reality. There was a happy ending. The epilogue takes place on an island that embraces diversity and those who have been Othered. It promises a better future. A more accepting tomorrow.

And there I was, raising an eyebrow. It’s not that easy, I thought. Change doesn’t happen like that. We don’t get happy endings like this.

Act Three: Suffering vs. Triumph

There’s something fascinating about the kinds of stories we tell—especially in media about marginalized groups. There are narratives that focus on the suffering, and there are narratives that focus on the triumph. Same characters, same events, totally different stories depending on which lens you use. The first three Dragon Age games? They leaned into the suffering. Not in an exploitative way, but that was part of what made them feel “gritty.” Inquisition started to pivot—it let us begin to overcome. That shift toward success is what made it feel different.

You see this in queer media too. The “bury your gays” trope is all about trauma and punishment. But The House in the Cerulean Sea? It lets its characters thrive. Exist in joy. That’s why it hit me so hard. I wasn’t used to seeing stories where people like me got the happy ending.

Interlude: A Train Video and a Comment Section

If I were more superstitious or religious, I would argue that some deity planned this out. The confluence of me reading this book while playing this game feels a little too coincidental—and the lesson feels very on-the-nose for the days we face.

Last night, as I was doomscrolling, I came across a video of a woman in a wheelchair asking someone to move their luggage from the accessible seating area. Both women (played by the same person, as many social media videos are) spoke evenly and compassionately. No arguing. No eye rolling. No name calling.

I’ve noticed the same thing as I spend time on Xiaohongshu. Sure, TikTok is back (and I still scroll on it too). But the comment sections? They’re kind. Gentle, even.

In the comments of that train video, though—on Western platforms—it was, by and large, the dumpster fire I expected. A few voices of praise, sure, but the majority mocked it. The majority said it was unrealistic. That it wouldn’t happen without yelling or insults.

And there it was: the comment that tied it all together.

“This video sounds like Dragon Age: The Veilguard dialogue.”

The thing my social circles have been complaining about? It’s the same thing I balked at in Somewhere Beyond the Sea. It’s this combination of happiness and gentleness (with a heavy dash of empathy) that I forgot existed.

Final Act: Grace as a Storytelling Strategy

It is the energy of Mr. Rogers. Of Bob Ross, LeVar Burton, Sesame Street, and other so-called “soft” media.

When did gentleness become unrealistic in my eyes? When did I lose the belief that kindness could be powerful?

I grew up with a father who embodied grace in a way I didn’t fully appreciate until years later. He was patient, gentle, and believed that grace wasn’t about judgment or spectacle—it was about quiet acts of love. I drifted from the church long ago, but the idea of grace? That stayed with me. I just never played out what it might look like if grace actually won.

Maybe that’s where Somewhere Beyond the Sea comes in. Maybe that’s where Veilguard’s “cringey” dialogue comes in. Maybe the reason I balk at grace winning is because I’ve always assumed it couldn’t.

Maybe this whole time, I’ve had some deep-seated white-guilt oppression-envy that I need to confront.

I argue in the title of this whole page that oxymoronic things can exist. I can be a badass in a ballgown. My last blog argued that a large part of an effective resistance is more than just being a badass.

When I looked back at Somewhere Beyond the Sea through this lens, the story made sense. Grace won. Hatred and anger lost.

In Veilguard, the dialogue I’m choosing leads to a grace-filled world—one built on empathy. My Rook is still a badass. She still kills blighted dragons and stabs gods—but she is kind.

Kindness is not weakness.
Grace does not have to be quiet.
Grace does not have to lose—not on screen, not on paper, not in real life.