Dragon Age: Origins/Tropes A To E: Difference between revisions

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* [[Aerith and Bob]]: The names of the four main types of darkspawn: genlocks, hurlocks, sharlocks, and... ogres. This also applies to character names to an extent. There are a lot of real-world names mixed in with the more fantastic fare.

** Justified in the codices: {{spoiler|Genlocks, Hurlocks, and Sharlocks (labeled in-game by the nickname "Shrieks") are the ancient terms for Blight-mutated Dwarves, Humans, and Elves respectively. But Ogres come from blighted Kossith Qunari, who are newcomers to the region, so Ogres apparently didn't exist until recently.}}

* [[Affably Evil]]: The Sloth Demon.

* [[After Combat Recovery]]: After combat, health and stamina/mana are quickly restored while fallen characters are automatically resurrected, with injuries that must be treated by either applying wound kits, retreating to the camp, or having a spirit healer in the party in order to remove associated status penalties.

* [[All Girls Want Bad Boys]]: Morrigan, whose approval will rise when the Warden takes the selfish, invidualistic, power-hungry option when presented with a choice of actions. Oghren lampshades this trope when training the PC to be a berserker -- standing around looking mysteriously angry apparently does wonders on the ladies.

** Leliana can also basically say as much to Alistair.

'''Alistair''': Huh. Really? I see. }}

* [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us]]:

** Earlier, once you've assembled the entire party, {{spoiler|your camp is attacked by Shrieks, along with an unpleasant surprise if you're a Dalish Elf.}}

** ''Awakening'''s prologue involves retaking Vigil's Keep from a darkspawn horde. {{spoiler|As well as a second, ''much'' larger assault at the end of the game on both the Vigil and the City of Amaranthine.}}

* [[Amazon Brigade]]: The Silent Sisters.

** Also a party consisting of a female Warden, Morrigan/Wynne, Leliana and {{spoiler|Shale}}.

* [[Aristocrats Are Evil]]: Several examples. Beneath the dwarves' veneer of tradition and honour lies a [[Deadly Decadent Court]] waiting to stab you in the back. In ancient times, the Magisters of the Tevinter Imperium tried to kill the Maker and take His Golden City for themselves and created the darkspawn. When the game takes place, Tevinter is a [[Vestigial Empire]], but its Magisters are still ruthless blood mages. On the other hand, the nobles of Ferelden are decent people, with a few exceptions.

** As alluded to in conversations with Leliana and the prequel novels, Orlais has a [[Deadly Decadent Court]]. Although it is well-known that half the bards and minstrels in Orlais are spies and assassins, Orlesian nobles still welcome them, because outwitting a rival's agent is part of the game aristocrats play.

'''Dalish Warden''': And does he ''steal'' the Homeland of those who don't? }}

* [[Arranged Marriage]]:

* [[Ascended Meme]]:

** If you pick Harrowmont as the next Dwarven king:

** Also, if you support Bhelen:

** As well as Leliana, while bantering about with her in flirtation.

** At the end, {{spoiler|If your approval with Sten is high enough, he'll be at the party. Talk to him twice, and he'll say, "Where is the cake? [[I Was Told There Would Be Cake]]. [[The Cake Is a Lie]]."}}

** What happens if you don't open a lock?

** Also, there's two t-shirts for sale at Bioware's website now, "Morrigan disapproves" and "Enchantment!"

** In the "Darkspawn Chronicles" DLC, which is the final battle from the point of view of the darkspawn, the final battle is against Alistair and his remaining three companions (Morrigan, Leilana, and the Mabari Hound), as they attack the Archdemon. The dog, which has no canon name (the devs wanted to make it clear that the dog has whatever name you choose to give to him), in this alternate reality is called "Barkspawn" by Alistair, the joker.

** Weylon appears to do this more and more as he becomes agitated with the Warden's questioning.

** When Leliana convinces that the Revered Mother should let Sten go;

* [[Attempted Rape]]: Happens to the female guests at the City Elf's wedding. Shianni, the City Elf PC's cousin, [[Rape as Drama|isn't as lucky in the 'attempted' bit...]] It also happens to a female City Elf. [[Bullying a Dragon|It doesn't end well for the rapists.]]

** Typified by demonkind, led by the strongest.

** Inverted by the Grey Wardens, as their most respected get creamed, while the cadets have to save the world.

** Averted by most of Ferelden, actually. The King and lords in charge bite the dust rather early, and the bad guys achieve coup by deceit and cowardice. When the player does get a chance to face them, said villains [[Anticlimax Boss|aren't particularly challenging]].

* [[Awakening the Sleeping Giant]]: The events of the City Elf Origin eventually caused the entire Alienage to riot.

* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Almost every AoE attack has Friendly Fire. There are no tactical conditions under which you can ''ever'' trust companions' AI to use AoE spells or bombs, and the few situations you can lay an AoE trap without your companions stumbling in are still very tricky to set up. One reason Blood Wound is so overpowered is its lack of Friendly Fire.

* [[Awesome Moment of Crowning]]: The player's monarch of choice gets one. {{spoiler|The PC also gets one six months later, if Alistair or Anora were persuaded to marry him/her.}}

** And what the darkspawn do with female prisoners...

** And where darkspawn come from...

* [[Baby Factory]]: Brood Mothers.

* [[Back Stab]]: If your rogue is melee, rest assured you are pigeonholed into this. (Although it's not entirely bad, given that a Cunning Rogue can kill an enemy faster than the Game breaking mages can.)

** Also the ''Warden's Keep'' DLC mentions that when King Arland's forces besieged Soldier's Peak, they held out for ''months'' before the Fortress was breached and even then, the half-starved Wardens ''still'' made them pay for every single metre taken.

* [[Badass Boast]]: The Warden has a really nice one if you choose to drive out the leader of the Crimson Oars.

'''Crimson Oars Leader''': I, um... We... We were just leaving. Yes Oars, we go to the docks! }}

** Awakening too;

'''Guard''': "Eh... Then it's good to have you here, ser." }}

*** Although in both these cases, The Warden really isn't kidding. People seem to pick up on that.

* [[Bag of Spilling]]: A rare single-game example: {{spoiler|when freeing Arl Eamon's child from the demon by going into the Fade, you are unable to use Fade Shapeshifting, which you were able to use in another visit to the Fade that could be completed before.}}

** Also, characters imported to ''Awakening'' lose all DLC items except for those obtained in Return to Ostagar.

* [[Bare Your Midriff]]: The Dalish armor on females.

* [[Battle Cry]]

** Being a Reaver and Grey Warden also nullifies most disadvantages, they cannot die by loss of energy since the taint always provides energy (or they would not have been able to survive the infection with it to become dakspawn), they can steal life force so that the taint would affect them less or even make them immortal, they age far slower because their blood is both darkspawn and dragon. The worst case scenario is once you lost like 500 years of life energy, there is noone around you to slaughter and you transform into something as or even more powerful than a Old God/Archdemon (human) or like The Architect (elf) while still staying yourself with maybe questionable sainity.

** Being a Grey Warden means you can sense the Darkspawn, giving you adequate warning of when they are near. The downside, that very ability also allows the Darkspawn to find ''you''. Even if you try to run away, the Darkspawn ''will'' find you... they ''always'' find you!

* [[Blood Magic]]:

** A specialty available to mages.

** [[The Spoony Experiment|Spoony]] complained that he spent the entirety of the game using the Walking Bomb technique and its variants to kill everything but the bosses.

* [[Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick]]: Courtesy of Anders: ''All I want is a pretty girl, a decent meal, '''and the right to shoot lightning at fools'''.''

* [[Breast Plate]]: Mostly averted/justified.

** Massive plate armor, which has no difference between male and female models, except in shoulder width, thoroughly averts this trope.

** Medium and heavy armor, which is made of different kind of mails (splint, scale, chain) justifies it, as the material is supposed to be flexible and could very well be form fitting without sacrificing protective qualities, and they don't show any cleavage whatsoever.

* [[Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu]]: {{spoiler|You can end the Blight for good... but one of the Grey Wardens has to die. Or father a baby that will steal Cthulhu's soul.}}

* [[Bullying a Dragon]]:

** You'd think those punks will know by now that you ''really'' live up to your reputation. As the good Sgt. Kylon said at Denerim:

** You can see it as early as your first visit to Lothering, where you can easily intimidate an entire bandit gang to run away by just mentioning that you're Grey Wardens. Their leader tries to be cocky even after that, but his slow-sounding henchman's constant reiterations about how he heard that the Grey Wardens are "really, really good [at fighting]" take the wind out of his sails really quickly. You can even demand a donation from ''them'' to the Wardens. (You can demand too much, refuse to do anything but kill them, or decide to turn in any survivors to the Templars, at which point they figure they might as well fight to the death anyway.)

*** Alternatively, if you've chosen the mage class, you can inform them of this fact. The dull henchman's reaction this time? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvFQr5U8oyY "I-I don't want to be a toad!"]

** Lampshaded in ''Dragon Age II''. {{spoiler|You can meet Zevran, the elf assassin from ''Dragon Age: Origins'', assuming you didn't import a save from that game in which you chose to kill him for attempting to assassinate you. You are given a mission by some Antivan Crows (the order to which Zevran belonged) posing as nobles to take him out, but once Zevran tells you the truth about them, you can choose to team up with him against his hunters. Once the Crows attack you, Zevran will comment that he can't understand why mooks like them think they can defeat people like you and the Warden.}}

* [[Burn the Orphanage]]: The "Something Wicked" quest.

* [[But Thou Must!]]: If you don't voluntarily become a Grey Warden, you'll be conscripted. The game lets you rail against this.

**** '''Morrigan approves +5.'''

***** [[Your Approval Fills Me with Shame]].

* [[Call a Rabbit a Smeerp|Call a Count an Arl]]: The titles of nobility in the game are all somewhat unique, aside from "King" and "Queen."

** This is mostly [[Phantasy Spelling]]. Earl (largely equivalent to Count in any case) becomes Arl, whereas Baron and Thegn get mixed and divided into Teyrn and Bann.

* [[Camera Screw]]

* [[Can't Drop the Hero]]: Played straight except for one small part where party members rescue the PC (which is itself optional, as you can break yourself out) and another where your party members [[Hold the Line]] during the final battle.

* [[Career Killers]] / [[Murder, Inc.]]: "The Antivan Crows send their regards."

* [[Cat Fight]]: A male Warden daring or unlucky enough to romance both Leliana and Morrigan can expect to witness several examples of ''very'' tense moments between the two that end ''just'' short of actual violence.

* [[Chekhov's Gunman]]: {{spoiler|Remember that "Trickster Spirit" you summoned in the Circle Tower? [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Turns out that may not have been the best idea]].}}

** You can also meet Wynne while at Ostagar, and have a pleasant conversation with her.

* [[Childhood Friends]]: Jowan and the Warden mage. Presumably an attempt to make the player feel more inclined to go along with his dangerous plan. You can even try to defend him by invoking this.

* [[The Church]]: The Chantry

* [[Church Militant]]: So very, very many. The Templars are an entire order of Church ([[Call a Rabbit a Smeerp|well, Chantry]]) Militants. The Qunari also have some.

** Done hilariously nonsensically if you choose to let the desire demon (Kitty) possess the girl in Honnleath. Whereas previously both the girl and Kitty had a proper, normal range of expressive intonation, after the possession, the possessed girl suddenly enters a [[Creepy Monotone]].

** Also touched upon by Shale when asked why it doesn't really act like other golems:

** This is an identifying trait of the Tranquils, regularly [[Lampshaded]].

** The Sloth Demon has one.

** Due to Arl Howe's betrayal and brutal murder of most of the Couslands, the Human Noble Warden can decide whether or not to engage in one of these. Later in ''Awakening'', the Warden can follow through on a threat to murder the members of Howe's family in retaliation by executing Nathaniel Howe when he is caught attempting to assassinate the Warden.

*** On the other hand, its entirely possible to avert this, playing the Warden as simply seeking revenge on just Arl Howe himself. In ''Awakening'' the Warden can decide to recruit Nathaniel into the Wardens instead of executing him, befriend him and inspire him to redeem his family's name after he realises the extent of his father's crimes. One possible epilogue reveals that Nathaniel even rescues the Warden's brother from bandits and the Howes are returned some of their lands, ending the bad blood between the families.

* [[Damned By Faint Praise]]: You can actually kill {{spoiler|Jowan}} with this.

** And if you ''do'' actually say something that's barely nice about Jowan ("Well, he's ''trying'' to be a better person, I guess?"), Arl Eamon will say this trope word for word.

* [[Dead Man Walking]]: All Grey Wardens, due to the Taint.

** Also, the entire purpose of the Legion of the Dead, to the point of ''holding a funeral for them when they join up''.

* [[Deal with the Devil]]: Mage characters can negotiate with a demon for access to Blood Magic in return for {{spoiler|allowing the demon to possess a child; though you can renege on your promise by bullying the demon afterwards}}. In addition, many other demons can be bargained with for various things. Not all of them betray you, either.

** Incidentally, you can betray many of the demons you make a deal with, with no worse consequences than having to fight with them.

* [[Deconstructor Fleet]]: The game heavily deconstructs the "fantasy hero" genre, adding realistic and unpleasant politics and bigotry to the fantasy setting, and making moral choices complicated and difficult. At several points, you have the option between doing what is good and doing what, ultimately, will best help save the world.

* [[Deflector Shields]]: The Mage's Arcane Shield (boosts Defense) and the Arcane Warrior's Shimmering Shield (boosts damn near everything). And yes, you can have both on at the same time. Prior to a recent PC patch, the Shimmering Shield was bugged and [[Good Bad Bugs|didn't drain mana when in use]]. This was fixed with the patch, but it's ''still'' overpowered.

** By about halfway through ''Awakening'', Elite Ogres become an elaborate speed bump.

* [[Detachable Lower Half]]: {{spoiler|The Harvester in Golems of Amgarrak.}}

* [[Deus Sex Machina]]: {{spoiler|Morrigan's solution to the [[Someone Has to Die]] problem in the endgame involves having the male PC, Alistair, or Loghain impregnating her.}}

* [[Difficulty Spike]]: If you go to a high level area such as Orzammar or Denerim immediately after [[Opening the Sandbox|leaving Lothering]].

* [[Disaster Democracy]]: Twice, with the dwarves and humans.

* [[Dissonant Serenity]]: Hespith. {{spoiler|The result of being broken both by circumstances and Branka's obsession isn't pretty.}} And she speaks in a highly [[Creepy Monotone]]. There's also the fact that she's in the initial stage of {{spoiler|turning into a [[Body Horror|Broodmother]].}}

* [[Distracted By the Shiny]]: The purpose of the Lure traps. Description of the Glamour Charm required to make them:

* [[Double Entendre]]:

** Have ''you'' ever licked a lamppost in winter?

*** In Awakening, there's a staff named Lamppost in Winter. The item description says that licking it would not be advisable.

** Zevran employs this occasionally, when he's not being blatantly obvious.

'''Warden:''' Is that some kind of euphemism? }}

** In romancing Alistair, he will at one point give the Female PC a rose, stating that it reminds him of her. She can reply "Feeling ''thorny'', are we?"

** There's quite a bit of this in general if you're looking, obviously in Party Romances, but also particularly where the Warden can flirt with or seduce NPCs. (Example of the latter is Isabella in the Pearl. "Can we go back to your ship? I'd love to see what's below deck.")

** Oghren gets a pretty good one early in ''Awakening'', upon discovering a ghoul equipped with his stolen gear.

* [[Downer Ending]]: The overall ending to the main story arc is always [[Bittersweet Ending|bittersweet]], but due to there being many smaller [[Multiple Endings]], some specific places or people that you tried to help during the story usually only get this.

* [[Dracolich]]: The Queen of the Blackmarsh, an [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|electro-ghost dragon from another dimension]].

** {{spoiler|Even if you are a clueless idiot, the part where Sten returns home (If you have enough respect with him) really drives it home. When asked by his people if he met anyone worthy of respect on his travels, he replies "One."}}

* [[Dysfunction Junction]]: Pretty much every party member you can recruit in this game has a major psychological trauma or three in their past (or in some cases their present). This is how you can [[Spotting the Thread|tell]] that {{spoiler|Mhairi is a [[Mauve Shirt]]: she's not dysfunctional.}}

* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: if you work very hard, you'll be able to get one of these. However, there's many other... not that happy outcomes.

* [[Easily Forgiven]]: Rampant throughout the main quest storyline. Count the number of times that, after you have slaughtered your way throughout an entire dungeon of a particular enemy race or group, the leader of that race or group will come out and offer to team up with you. You can even call Father Kolgrim on it when he offers to proclaim you Andraste's champion after you've slaughtered about two-thirds of his followers.

* [[Elves vs. Dwarves]]:

** Spoofed by Zevran and Oghren:

'''Oghren''': ''Nahhh.'' }}

*** Oghren goes as far as admitting that he thinks Zevran is all right. The elf promptly deadpans that he's got to be drunk.

* [[Enslaved Elves]]: The elves used to have a highly advanced society and culture, complete with immortality. Then humans showed up, and everything went to hell. Modern elves rank just above slaves in society (and ''are'' slaves in some parts of the world), and most don't even know they used to be a powerful race. Even the Grey Warden can do only a little to improve their lot.

* [[Entendre Failure]]: Occurs between Alistair and Zevran during a conversation with Shale.

'''Alistair:''' A challenge? I'd happily hop borders, given the chance. I've never even been close to leaving Ferelden. }}

** There's also this little gem possible for either male or female wardens:

'''Leliana:''' Ah, the games you play. Listen, I want to spend the night with you. There. I said it. }}

** There's also the option to say (in reply to her turning early):

'''Warden:''' Wait, what? }}

* [[Evil-Detecting Dog]]: The codex on werewolves states that mabari became popular in Ferelden due to their ability to sense werewolves, a necessity in an age where packs of werewolves roamed freely across the landscape and anyone you invited into your home could be afflicted with the curse. Dog demonstrates this ability a few times in-game, and not just with werewolves.

** Lampshaded in ''Dragon Age II'' during Alistair's cameo. Bann Teagan says that they should be getting back to Denerim to see the Warden, and as they are leaving, Alistair responds, "You're always so formal. She/He has a name, you know.

* [[Everything Fades]]: Halfway played straight. All bodies fade away into low-polygon bones and junk, which remain when you return. Averted when your return to Ostagar to find {{spoiler|the king's body perfectly intact}}, but that is given a codex explanation: evidently, the Darkspawn taint is so fatal to living things that it kills the parasites that would normally break down dead tissue. (And of course, when you return, it's winter, which would further stave off decomposition.)

* [[Everything's Worse with Bears]]: Bears in the game come in two flavors: black bears and great bears. Considering that there is nothing supernatural about them and that they are not sentient, bears are some of the toughest enemies in the game. This is to your advantage if you play as a rogue and get the Ranger specialization, as you'll be able to summon first a black bear and eventually a great bear. Oh [[The Joys of Torturing Mooks|the joys of slaughtering mooks]] with a bear at your side.

** [[It Got Worse|Ohhh, it gets even worse]]. There is a Blight-infected variant called a Bereskarn.

* [[Executive Meddling]]: This and time restraints are the reason Shale's only available via DLC instead of being in the vanilla game.

** Though the devs were kind enough to include that bit of DLC for free with any copy purchased new. It still served to discourage buying the game used (which doesn't turn a profit for Bioware).

 

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