Dragon Age II/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alas, Poor Scrappy:
    • Carver, if he survives Death by Origin Story, can get one of these later.
    • And much more contentious, Anders, if you choose to execute him. Regardless of fan reception, it was clearly designed to give his death drama.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Bartrand, and Meredith by game's end. Neither were sweethearts prior to obtaining the lyrium idol but they got really bad afterwards.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: This game is made of this trope. Almost every character can be interpreted in multiple, valid ways. Because it is lower fantasy than its predecessor, the game forces the player to reevaluate preconceptions built up by playing as the Warden, such as the fate of mages, the rightness of the Chantry, etc. Hawke having an apostate sister, or being one him/herself, gives the player a distinctly different starting perspective than, say, the Human Noble Warden.
    • Anders. Is he a tragic hero, a hypocritical asshole, or some combination of the two? At best, he's a revolutionary fighting against injustice. At worst, he's a terrorist.
      • Arguably, he's all of the above. His entire character arc in the game is about starting at one end of the slippery slope and ending up at the other.
    • Grand Cleric Elthina. Was she the only thing keeping the mage/templar conflict stable, or did her refusal to take a side make things worse? A question also applicable to the Chantry/Qunari conflict in Act 2. Either the appearance of violent zealots was an inevitable consequence of the sustained Qunari presence in the city, or the deterioration of so many members of her church is an indication that she is dangerously out-of-touch with the rest of Kirkwall.
    • Orsino is either a good man who did horrible things out of desperation, or an Asshole In Sheep's Clothing. Further complicated by him acting differently depending on which ending you take.
      • 'Good' is argued against by his actually being interested in the psychotic necromancer's research, and corresponding with him about it. Had he merely feared to turn the man into the Templars because Meredith would use that as an excuse to oppress the mages, nothing stopped Orsino from just killing the guy himself and leaving him facedown in a sewer. As is, Orsino knowingly lets a serial killer continue to walk rather than deal with the problem one way or another, because he wants to learn more about the magic the guy is using. That's amoral at best, if not downright bad.
    • Meredith can either be a crazed Knight Templar, a Well-Intentioned Extremist, or a Properly Paranoid woman who was right all along.
      • Presumably you're talking about Act 1 Meredith, who we never see and barely hear about, and the initial setup of the Kirkwall Circle. From Act 2 onwards Meredith is clearly insane due to the red lyrium idol.
    • Sebastian: A Royal Who Actually Does Something or a spoiled prince who'll try to get others to do his dirty work more often than not?
  • Base Breaker:
    • People are debating whether or not Anders is the most compelling character in the game and is a tragic figure that's developed from his previous incarnation, or a complete asshole. Or both.
    • Carver's Sibling Rivalry with Hawke either gave him depth that Bethany lacked, or made him an annoying whiner.
    • Similarly, Bethany is either completely generic and flat as a character, or a refreshingly well-adjusted Only Sane Gal in a cast of ridiculously dysfunctional people. As with Carver, it depends on how much the player enjoys a Dysfunction Junction.
    • Tallis. This boils down to how much one likes Felicia Day and her involvement in MOTA, as well as how much one likes the Qunari. Many found her character fascinating. Others were irritated that she succeeds in her goals, irrespective of whether Hawke is anti-Qunari, and her dialogue has a tinge of "can't argue with Qunari!" to it; thus they deemed her to be veering on Canon Sue status.
  • Broken Base: The sequel makes heavy changes from Origins, which is a far more traditional BioWare game. In-fighting is vicious and common, in just about every discussion about the game.
  • Complete Monster: Quentin. Also, Ser Alrik.
  • Contested Sequel: Is it a worthy entry into the DA franchise, an okay but obviously rushed game, or the herald of the beginning of the end for all of Bioware? There but for the grace of God go you, gentle troper.
  • Continuity Porn: Over the course of Hawke's seven years, s/he might encounter Alistair, Leliana, Zevran, Flemeth, Bodahn and Sandal, Cullen, Nathaniel, Merrill (and anyone from her clan), Anders, Bann Tegan, Isolde, Sketch, Sophia Dryden, and Isabela. Not to mention hearing about other characters, general mythology gags, and enough references to the Origins Warden.
  • Critical Dissonance: An example where critics, primarily major ones with previews and review copies, have higher recorded scores than the recorded scores of customers. On Metacritic, Dragon Age II has scores ranging from 79 to 82. Its user scores? Range from 3.9 to 4.4.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The song that plays in the Destiny trailer. That chorus. Oh good Lord, that chorus.
  • Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy: Some people who played the game complained that the conflict between the mages and templars resulted in this, making many a player utter the Eight Deadly Words.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Enemy assassins had disproportionately large hitpoint bars and vanish off-screen during battle, reappearing only to backstab the member of your team with the lowest armor or health value for massive damage only to return to stealth immediately after. This means that, at best, the player has a seconds-long window to whittle down a large amount of health while dealing with whatever other backup they brought with them and places frail members at exceptional risk.
    • Enemy mages, while not as versatile as before, are still a large pain with dangerous area of effect attacks that can easily wipe out a party in seconds if they do not move out of their substantial range. The mages themselves are still relatively frail compared to warriors, but get around this by either covering themselves in an impenetrable shield for ten seconds at a time (at least they can't do anything while in that shield), or seemingly teleporting themselves to a random point on the battlefield to evade. Of special note are Blood Mages, Serebaas, and Arcane Horrors; three foes that you'll have to eliminate as soon as possible if you hope to win a battle.
    • While the Rage Demons of Origins were mostly minor foes with crippling weaknesses to ice spells, including the ever popular Cone of Cold, their successors have become far more dangerous. They're extremely resilient to most attacks, can dive into the ground for sneak attacks, next to impossible to stun, and deliberately target the party members with either the least armor or lowest health, making them one of the biggest threats on the battlefield whenever they appear.
    • Revenants are just as deadly in this game as they were in Origins. Worse, they often appear alongside Arcane Horrors and have a nasty tendency of pulling you away from them giving the Horrors time to cast their party killing spells.
    • More literally, poison spiders on nightmare. That damned stun poison attack lets them wipe out anyone in 1v1 combat unless you can stop that. And the biggest problem is that they always spawn at least 2, usually 3, at a time. Definitely a contender for the toughest non-boss enemy in the game, at least on nightmare.
    • Legacy brings back the older darkspawn and other cave dwelling monsters to give them a serious boost.
      • Genlocks return as apelike berserkers. Not so bad on their own. Their Alpha cousins, on the other hand, are large menacing creatures that carry spiked shields that almost completely nullify head-on damage. Getting behind them is easier said than done as they have surprisingly quick charge attacks that do massive damage and send most characters flying. To make it worse, the areas where they're found are full of identical spiked shields as background pieces that allow them to ambush the player.
      • Hurlock Alphas return as hideous, three meter tall giants with massive axes capable of easily sending an entire party flying in one sweep. Worse, they actually seem to buff and coordinate other darkspawn into a much more dangerous force.
      • Deepstalkers remain much like they're Origins counterparts, except for a few details: their spit attacks are fast, plentiful, and they can hurt. They appear in swarms and can easily pick of fragile member through sheer firepower before you finally rip through them all.
    • The Ghasts in Mark of the Assassin. Just as bad as Deepstalkers, they also throw buffers and mages into the mix as well.
  • Designated Hero: The Dwarven Noble Warden from the optional backstory is definitely this. He exiled Alistair to become a wandering, bitter drunk, sent Loghain to his death against the Archdemon, and was utterly ruthless in dealing with the Blight. Despite all signs pointing to him being an incredible asshole, he's still considered "The Hero of Ferelden".
    • Oddly enough, the in-game description casts the first two decisions in a more negative light than they appear in the first game. Alistair leaves the party in disgust if Loghain is spared, and if Alistair is in exile, it's because the Warden intervened to stop his execution. Loghain also insists on being the one to slay the Archdemon so that he can atone for his wrongdoing. An argument can be made for him being a Designated Anti-Hero
    • And if you look more closely at the other two choices of import, they aren't so clean and shiny either. The Cousland option, at least, is the one where the werewolves survived (as werewolves) - obviously meaning that Cousland massacred the Dalish clan.
  • Designated Villain: It's funny how Hawke starts out as the bad guy to Cassandra, no matter how heroic the player chooses to play him/her. As a result: This trope may ensue. Of course there's also the option of playing an absolute jerkass instead...
  • Dude, Not Funny: In-universe, at the end of the sidequest "Malcolm's Will" in the DLC "Legacy", Mage!Hawke is not amused by Carver's joking reaction to the revelation that Malcolm didn't want his children to be mages. Even Snarky Hawke doesn't find it funny. It's especially tacky because their mage sister Bethany is dead.
    • Snarky Hawke gets this treatment if s/he opts to joke while Viscount Dumar is holding Saemus' corpse. Aveline will call Hawke on this.
    • Snarky Hawke gets this treatment all the time as they make jokes in the middle of all sorts of serious quests from helping the guards put down a dangerous raider band to helping Fenyriel not turn into an abomination. Fair enough too.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: The (very) minor character Lilley from the Inside Job sidequest (who has about 10 lines of dialogue and gets killed off half-way through the quest) has somehow endeared herself to a lot of fans, some of whom go as far as to suggest she should have been made a permanent party member. This is probably all thanks to her surprisingly powerful voice acting, though her being a good-looking Action Girl likely helped a lot, too.
    • Athenril seems to have attracted a similar following, probably for much the same reasons, and the fact that she's one of the elves people will hold up as a sign that the new elf design is good (as opposed to to Orana, who people use as evidence that it's bad).
    • Ketojan. He really gave the feeling that he was going to be a party member, which meant his fate left a lot of players very disappointed.
  • Fan Nickname: "Diplomatic" and "Aggressive" are more commonly referred to as "Paragon" and "Renegade."
  • Foe Yay Shipping: Aveline and Isabela, ohsoverymuch. Somebody is writing perverted Femme Slash between them at this very moment. Probably Varric. Or Isabela herself.
    • "Fenders". Fenris and Anders is becoming more prevalent as well, despite their obvious vitrol. Adds a whole new layer of meaning to the term "fender-bender."
    • Merrill/Fenris is also surpisingly prevalent in the fandom, for similar reasons.
  • Funny Aneurysm Moment: If Varric is in the party when Dougal offers to front you the cash to get in on the Deep Roads expedition, when you mention that Bartrand won't like it if Dougal is involved Varric will say, quote, "He'd lose his mind. Not that it wouldn't be funny to watch." Yeah...not so funny to someone who's already done a playthrough and knows what happens to Bartrand after the Deep Roads...
    • One of the "Bone Pit" sidequests has Hawke convincing the miners to go back to work. One of the miners doesn't want to go back after the dragon attack. He drunkenly says "What if something else comes, like uh...bigger dragons?" Cue Act III...
  • Game Breaker:
    • The Gravitic spell is fun to abuse. It will cause all foes within its wide range to move at a snail's pace, allowing you and your companions to pile blow after blow on them without fear of serious retaliation. Foes at the epicenter of the spell are so slow that they might as well be paralyzed. The spell turns almost any boss fight into a Curb Stomp Battle. For extra fun, you can clump all your foes at the centre of Gravitic using Pull of the Abyss, and take advantage of their inability to spread out from one another by finishing them all off with an area of effect attack, like Firestorm or Cone of Cold.
    • Do you want to be a more defensive mage instead of an offensive one? Just take Spirit Healer. Enable Aura, then slap on Arcane Shield and Rock Armor and have fun tanking anything as you are dealt nothing but instantly healed scratch damage. Yes, this includes the final boss.
    • Dual Weapon Rogue -> Assassin specialization -> Assassinate -> Overkill -> amped-up Cunning = one-shot just about anything that isn't a full-fledged boss. The Assassin specialization also gets Pinpoint Strikes, which turns every attack into a critical hit, and a passive ability that doubles the critical bonus granted by Cunning. Anything that survives Assassinate can be cut down by Pinpoint Strikes in seconds. And then you can have Anders or Bethany cast Haste, and Hawke will be hitting enemies so fast that their health bar will be glowing white from all the criticals.
    • Adding to the above is the Duelist specialization, which works to essentially make Hawke nearly untouchable in combat and able to tear down single opponents in seconds. Specc'd properly, a Dual Weapon Rogue Hawke with Assassin and Duelist specializations can tank and inflict horrific amounts of damage by him/herself, becoming an almost literal One-Man Army.
    • Ignore Willpower for Merrill, and give her only Magic and Constitution, give her a bunch of defensive sustainables, and you have DA2's Arcane Warrior.
  • Game Breaking Bug: Your entire party is dead, but it goes to a cutscene straight from combat (eg the Ancient Rock Wraith)? Yeah....At best you'll be starting over from your last save as the game freezes up on a pseudo loading/party screen, at worst the file becomes corrupted and is Lost Forever.
    • There are buggy friendship perks that can potentially infinitely drag down your attack rate (Isabela) and damage resistance (Sebastian). This is repairable on PC version, but a console character has no hope. This was patched, but it doesn't work retroactively—meaning any character already afflicted with this bug is stuck with it.
    • Quite a few bugs crop up that can render quests unable to be finished, most of which can be tripped simply by looting things in the wrong order. Normally, these can be fixed by loading up a saved game (or the console on the PC), but if you don't save very often, you may lose hours of gameplay. Especially grating because some such quests must be completed before moving on with the story.
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • A glitch can give Rogue!Hawke a whopping 35 defense score per point of Cunning, making him/her nearly untouchable by normal attacks.
    • Using the maker's sigh potions basically resets your character's talents, attributes and specialties. Occasionally, drinking it will cause a glitch to happen, and it's possible to keep your specialties, meaning you can unlock a third one. This has been patched out.
    • In the final boss fight, the boss will repeatedly paralyze all combatants to go on monologues... but if you've invested into Aveline's defensive skills, and have her in your active party, she'll be immune, and proceed to smack around the boss. It's as if someone asked: "Why don't you just hit em?"
      • This can actually cause a glitch with the post game autosave. If the boss isn't allowed to complete it's stun-cycle at least once the autosave may be saved incorrectly and when you load you will be stuck in a wall listening to the final battle dialog until the game crashes.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Anders' destruction of the Chantry feels less comfortable given the 2011 Norway attacks, one perpetrator also being named Anders. They look quite similar as well.
  • I Knew It!: A few fans noticed Qunari were rumored to possess horns in Origins—it was mentioned in a codex entry—the ogres seemed to imply this from the outset.
  • Incest Yay Shipping: Hawke and Bethany. Owners of the computer version can even mod Merrill to have Bethany's appearance.
  • Internet Backdraft: Opinions about the game's quality are highly varied. In addition, debating whether or not the Rite of Annulment was justified and the fates of any surviving mages will get heated very quickly.
  • Jerkass: A lot of characters come of this way in your dealings with them, but of all people Hawke (especially a Snarky Hawke) sometimes seems to act like a sociopathic schadenfreude. Of particular note is after sleeping with Anders and he pours his heart out to you and asks to move in, a Snarky Hawke's response (complete with dirty smirk) is as follows, if Anders gets rejected.

Hawke: This was a bad idea. I think you should go.
Anders: What?
Hawke: Sorry. You just weren't that good.

  • Jerkass Woobie: Carver, if he lives so long. The more terrible things happen to him, the more Jerkass he becomes. Fenris even moreso.
    • Anders and Justice are this too, individually or combined. Though Anders still genuinely seems like a selfless, caring person (even on occasion to Merrill), it's often undermined by his more callous/cruel remarks to people with differing opinions about mages. Of particular note is his taunting Aveline about her dead husband, and being delighted if you choose to hand Fenris over to Danarius. Then there's Bethany. It's far less noticeable if she's forced to join the Circle, but even then she's cold and sharp towards Hawke in later Acts. Warden Bethany, however is even more bitter and cold towards not just Hawke, but almost all the former party members. This is more noticeable during the DLC, in which she provides some scathing remarks, which she then frustratedly retracts. It's a cruel counterpoint to Act 1's sweet, kind and gentle Bethany.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: While Fenris's endless rants about the dangers of magic are annoying, the game's plot does show that he's not exactly wrong about how dangerous magic can be if used incorrectly or maliciously.
  • Memetic Mutation: Male Hawke's Beard [dead link] instantly was gravitated towards as Hawke's primarily personality characteristic.
    • "Goddamnit Anders" is also a frequent one.
    • "Press a button and something awesome happens" (one of the devs used the line in a preview in summary of the new combat system) is popular among detractors of the game, Bioware as a whole and "dumbing down".
  • Moe: Merrill—besides having the regular enormous elf eyes, she also possesses the quintessential "cute and adorable" trait associated with Moe girls. As a bonus, she's clumsy and absent-minded.
  • Moral Event Horizon: So far, some fans reactions to Anders nuking Kirkwall's Chantry in order to start a war between mages and templars have been disgust and horror. Meredith using the event as an excuse to invoke the Rite of Annulment is often met with similar revulsion.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • They pulled out the stops on the 'Haunted' sidequest: No combat, just atmosphere... and objects levitating themselves, flying around the room, floating to the ceiling and coming to rest, and then thrown at you... The fight at the end can pretty much be said to be a relief. Though it's pretty funny to see Merrill, a blood mage who has knowingly dealt with powerful demons freak out over some floating furniture.
    • The game has this in spades in general, with the quest All That Remains, in which you scour a serial killing blood mage's incredibly creepy lair looking for your mother, being a particular standout. And in the endgame, First Enchanter Orsino's transformation into a gruesome Harvester.
    • When investigating the disappearances of templar recruits early in the game, Hawke interrogates prostitute Idunna. She asks him/her how s/he found out about her. No matter what option you pick, she forces Hawke to answer her question and then tells him/her to slit his/her own throat. While Hawke makes it out, it is still very creepy when you watch your own character's actions controlled by someone else.
    • The slave statues in the Gallows come alive during the fight with Meredith. The way they move does not help.
  • Player Punch: A plenty.
    • Leandra's death at the hands of a Necromantic Serial Killer
    • Bethany or Carver being conscripted into either the Circle or the Templars if you leave them in Kirkwall during the Deep Roads expedition, or becoming Grey Wardens after being infected by the taint, or dying of the taint, or dying at the hands of the Ogre in Lothering. Getting the Hawke estate back rings hollow because they aren't there with you. See above for why it gets even lonelier.
    • Anders blowing up the Chantry. Especially if you are in a romance with him.
    • If you help Merrill with all her quests with the mirror you end up having to kill the possessed Keeper. And unless you choose the counter-intuitive 'I assume responsibility' dialogue option when confronting the clan, you also have to slaughter the entire clan. Including people like the mother of the boy you saved previously from the Fade, a friendly story teller, a proud craftsman who had previously explained his work. It's especially horrifying if you played as a Dalish Warden in Origins.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Before the game's release, many fans weren't thrilled about the fact that the game had a new player character, Hawke, in place of the Grey Warden from the previous game. The "Destiny" trailer went a very long way towards reconciling people to the idea.
    • Carver, as of Legacy.
  • Screwed by the Network: Detractors of the game have accused Bioware of dumbing the game down under orders from EA. Supporters who liked the game have pointed out the coincidence of Bioware officially cancelling the rumoured-to-be Awakening-style expansion, "The Exalted Marches", just a few days before the launch of Mass Effect 3.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Supporting the mages at the end. Orsino flips out and has to be terminated. And in the finally, your life in the city that you've struggled the whole game to establish and improve ends in empty-handed exile. The upside is only whether you cared at all about the mage rebellion on the global scale.
    • The Templar ending isn't much better. After helping her annul the Circle, Meredith suspects you of conspiring with the mages, and...has to be terminated. Hawke implicitly becomes the Viscount of Kirkwall in the aftermath...and the continent-wide mage rebellion still happens and Hawke and company disappear.
    • The Bone Pit questline ends this way. After all the work you put in during Acts I and II to make it prosper, a High Dragon shows up in Act III and kills all of the miners. The silver lining is that you get some nice equipment, but from a story perspective it's pretty depressing.
  • Squick: Some of Isabela's sexual remarks can get a bit much. Can be lampshaded by various companions.
  • Straw Man Has a Point: Despite what you may feel about Meredith's methods, she was in fact correct that a great deal of the Circle Mages were indeed practicing blood magic. This includes First Enchanter Orsino, who turns himself into an abomination and attacks Hawke, even if you choose to protect him.
    • Since it still wasn't all of the circle mages this goes both ways. Orsino was not off-base when he told Meredith;

Blood magic! Where do you not see blood magic?! My people can not SNEEZE without you accusing them of corruption!

    • If you read the Enigma of Kirkwall entries you'll discover that the Tevinter magi specifically built Kirkwall as a giant amplifier for blood magic through use of the city's architecture and secretly sacrificing thousands of slaves. The ritual sacrifice probably contributed to the weak Veil in Kirkwall (as stated in the codex), making communication with Fade demons a lot easier. No wonder so many Circle mages turned to blood magic; they're practically compelled to do so.
      • This point is expanded on with a Codex entry you find for Legacy which explicitly states that is why Kirkwall suffers a great deal of abominations/possessions.
      • Legacy also strongly hints that Kirkwall is the site of the Old Tevinter Imperium's original attempt to breach the Golden City, the event that created the First Blight. It must be the single most metaphysically tainted spot on Thedas; its amazing that any mage can so much as walk near it without spontaneously growing tentacles.
  • Take That, Scrappy!: The Party Banter in the DLCs has involved quite a few jabs at the expense of Carver and Anders.
  • That One Boss: The Rock Wraith and the duel with the Arishok provide the most frustrations for players.
    • Corypheus of Legacy proves to be much more of an annoyance than either of the others.
    • The Sky Horror in Mark of the Assassin. It's even tougher than Duke Prosper and Leopold.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks:
    • The second game makes changes to the dialogue wheel, predefined character with a voice, combat, and many other mechanics. This crops up as a complaint due to that. This is reflected in the reviews for the game, which range from "best RPG combat ever" and "refreshingly original narrative" to "dull and unnecessary gameplay changes" or "unfocused and inferior story." Most reviews seem to strike somewhere between the middle, though this still puts the game lower than Dragon Age Origins.
    • The DA:O rogue was something of a Skill Gate character, but complaints from players who couldn't get the hang of them were numerous enough to remake them into another flavor of fighter. It didn't help that the AI didn't provide a good example of how to use them. As a YMMV, the changes could be as much an improvement, as the rogue can now be played as another flavor of fighter, and lockpicking/traps cost no additional skill investment.
    • There are clashing opinions over various changes from Origins. Particularly over character redesigns. Many were also displeased with how many Origins characters look with the new graphics engine.
      • Especially worth noting are how the changes to the elves necessitated an alteration to Zevran's look, and that not everyone was happy about the Qunari getting horns.
    • The sheer Fan Dumb that complain that the sequel took the focus away from being about the Wardens, ignoring the fact that the only times the Wardens actually get to actually do something is during a Blight and since this was defeated in the first game, we're supposed to forget that the rest of the time Grey Wardens are effectively firemen in a firestation waiting centuries to deal with the next fire.
    • Another common complaint is that it doesn't focus on the characters enough, when the substantial focus is actually about Hawke's relationship with their companions over the course of seven years, completely missing the point that unlike the first game, we actually get an indication that these people have a life outside of the main character.
  • Uncanny Valley: Those eyelids were not made to be animated. And the eyebrows, Andraste's ass, those eyebrows! They may look pleasant and harmless at rest, but more they come to life, the more they lurch. Nostrils seem to have been problematic as well. On the bright side, the eyes no longer have quite has much the dead-eyed stare from Origins.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: When Aveline's husband Wesley is dying from the darkspawn taint, his face slowly becomes more and more gaunt, pale and his eyes begin to sink into his head.
    • Also noticeable to tragic degree on Bethany if you take her to the Deep Roads. Makes you wonder why no one realised she was tainted sooner though. Oddly enough, the visual effects of the taint are not present on Carver if he becomes infected.
    • Any fire you see is very nicely done, particularly considering how hard it is to make CGI fire look good.
  • Wangst: Almost all of Anders' conversations and banters, as well as all of his quests, revolve around the plight of mages. The degree of championing changes as the series goes on—he browbeats everyone in the beginning, and gets progressively angrier and more introverted as it continues.

Anders: That's unfortunate. Hating someone just because they're a mage is a shameful thing.
Carver: I don't hate you because you're a mage. I hate you because you won't shut up about it.

    • Similarly, Fenris can't seem to go longer than half of a conversation without mentioning slavery/evil mages/Tevinter. Not that it isn't somewhat justified, given his background, but some of his lines about it go a bit over the top.

Fenris: I escaped a land of dark magic only to have it haunt me at every turn. It is a plague burned into my flesh and my soul.

    • In-universe, this is the main reason that Carver isn't overly popular in the party, as he comes off as rather whiny for reasons that are much more small-scale and even downright petty compared to the rest of the group and their problems. He mostly gets over it later in the game though.
  • What an Idiot!: Pol, oh Pol. Apparently a few bits of gossip about meek, gentle Merrill is enough to get you to run away from her and right into the jaws of a Varterral that killed three of his fellows.
    • Emile de Launcet makes Pol look like a genius. He squanders the money his mother gives him to escape Kirkwall on drinks at the Hanged Man. He also falsely and publicly claims to be a Blood Mage because he thinks it will help him get laid. Even Meredith dismisses him as a threat when she hears this.
  • The Woobie: It's almost easier to list those who aren't Woobies.
    • Hawke him/herself may be the crowner. Just try going through the game without wanting to give him/her a hug at some point. The best case scenario involves one sibling dead, his/er mother dead, him/herself vanishing from his/her new home at Kirkwall, and his/her other sibling as well as all his/her companions save his/her love interest driven from his/her side. The best case scenario.
    • Anders. Went from snarky comic relief to a paranoid and angsty nutcase. Life has not been good to him. His rudeness to various people, particularly Merrill, gradually edges him towards Jerkass Woobie before diving straight into Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds with his little stunt at the Chantry.
      • Justice too, who started of as a fairly benevolent spirit, whose worst fear was to become a demon. In Awakening, he's friendly and in awe of everything in the world. In DA2 his personality is warped even further than Anders, and gets progressively worse during the game as he's become the very thing he feared the most.
    • Carver. The brother of a dead apostate sister and has quite a chip on his shoulder having to protect his surviving apostate sibling while proving that as the only warrior in the family that he isn't a burden. He is either forced into being a Warden and hates how he was always bailed out by his apostate sibling. Or he joins the templars and express how badly he wants to kill his only living connection left to prove something. Regardless of either choice, Carver just feels like he has no control over his own life.
    • Merrill. When you consider how the Dalish treat their entire tribe like family, the way they ostracize her seems exceedingly harsh. Her reaction to Pol's death was heart-wrenching, and her next personal quest includes a Player Punch. Fenris and Anders also say some incredibly cruel things to her from time to time.
    • Bethany, good God, Bethany. For one, she is an apostate, so the entirety of her childhood was spent constantly on the lookout for Templars. Then, either she or her twin brother dies at the hands of an ogre. If she survives, and is taken to the Deep Roads, she is infected by the taint. Unless Anders is there, she dies. If he is there, then she undergoes the Joining. It is a harsh life and totally destroys any innocence she has left. Now, if you left her with Leandra, she is discovered by Cullen and is forced into the Circle, otherwise her family suffers reprisals for harboring an apostate. Either way, you don't see her again until the endgame. It gets a little better if you are pro-Mage and she joins the Circle. You get to free her from her bondage to the Circle and she isn't guaranteed a miserable life and a miserable death before she hits fifty.
      • The Trespasser DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition provides at least some hope for Bethany - if she went into the Circle then the dissolution of the Kirkwall Circle leaves her a free woman again, and living in a city whose new ruler (Viscount Varric Tethras) and (if your choices in DA:I don't get Hawke killed) its greatest champion (Hawke, natch) both love her dearly. So thank the Maker, she has at least one chance at a happy ending.
    • Leandra Hawke. One of her children gets killed in the beginning of the game, her brother stole her inheritance, one of her children either gets sent to the Circle, the Templars, or the Grey Wardens and is never seen again or they die, and to top it all off, she is kidnapped by a serial killer and put through an And I Must Scream moment.
      • Even Gamlen has some Woobie qualities. Though he's to blame for gambling the family fortune away, you have to feel bad for him when you hear about how he nursed his ill parents in their dying days, only to have their last words be of Leandra, and leave all their money to her. He resents his sister due to this for quite a while (as a mirror to Carver/Hawke), before becoming utterly distraught and miserable when she is murdered. The one high point of his story is that you can unite him with a daughter he never knew he had.
    • Jerkass Woobie: Fenris. He gets Woobie points for his slave background, but the resulting hatred of mages makes him wholly unsympathetic towards them. He even asserts that Merrill is a monster while she's in mourning (see above). On the other hand, it's hard not to feel for him when you find out that he competed for the chance to be used as the subject of his master's ritual, not for his own sake, but to free his mother and sister from slavery... only for his sister to eventually turn him in to his former master in order to become his apprentice.
      • He insults Merrill but his line about hoping that she'll make the Keeper's sacrifice worth it suggests that his abrasive attitude is at least partially him trying to encourage these mages to be better, stronger people - the only way he knows how, with his terribly stunted social skills. He even outright refuses to consider turning Anders or Merrill in to the Templars when Sebastian brings it up, if only because they're Hawke's friends.
    • Stoic Woobie: Ketojan, and any other Saarebas by extension. Tranquil as well, particularly Karl.
    • The orphans under Evelina's care. First they have to flee to Kirkwall's slums to eke out a living after their parents are killed in the Blight. Then they have to watch their surrogate mother be taken away by the Templars when she tries to appeal to the Circle for help. Then when she returns years later, she has become an insane abomination. Finally they have to watch helplessly as Hawke and company slay her, leaving them alone to an uncertain future.
  • The Scrappy: It's almost harder to find a character who isn't hated by some part of the Fandom or Hatedom, though certain characters stand out. Of course, all of these characters have their fans, and it would be reasonable to say that many of these opinions arise from the game's severely Broken Base.
    • Either Anders or Fenris (or both), generally depending on which side of the Mage-Templar conflict one falls on.
    • For many players Tallis is a Scrappy, for reasons explained above in the Base Breaker entry. Plus, the fact that Felicia Day was used for the character's voice and appearance has caused many fans to accuse Bioware of blatant nerdbaiting.
  • Ugly Cute: Some have commented that the ghasts invoke this trope.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: If importing a save with the Dalish Warden, Alistair implies that despite granting the Hinterlands to the Dalish as their boon, in the seven years since then, events unfolded that ultimately caused this not to end very well. What the Hell, Ferelden?
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