Today I’m delving into Dragon Age 4’s hinted inspirations for its story and narrative. Throughout the course of reading too much into every single BioWare developer tweet, there have been a few rather noteworthy mentions to particular media that is inspiring the next Dragon Age’s plot.
From Shakespeare to the Bible to even wacky comic-book time travellers, we currently have three main influences for the next game’s narrative. So, without further ado, let’s get into it.
Tevinter Of Our Discontent:
The first narrative inspiration relates to a line from Shakespeare’s play - Richard III (3rd), as Mark Darrah tweeted about the working plot title of the next game being “Tevinter of our discontent.”
"I will say this: We have a plot with the working name of “Tevinter of our discontent” ... Who am I kidding, we’ll probably ship that."
This phrase itself is a double entendre of "winter of our discontent" which are the opening words to Richard III (the 3rd) as they lay the groundwork for the portrayal of Richard as a discontented man who is somewhat happy that his family have retaken the throne, however, rather upset with the fact that his brother is king, and he is not.
A segment of the soliloquy is as followed:
“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.”
In essence, "winter of our discontent” is a metaphor in which Richard used winter and summer to suggest that the reign of King Edward-IV (4th) had turned sadness, which is like winter, into celebration, like summer.
While the opening of this play starts on a victorious note for Richard and the royal family, by the end of this soliloquy, Richard wants to become king for himself, and decides to kill anyone in order to get there.
Later, Shakespeare described Richard as "Deformed, unfinished, sent before his time into this breathing world, scarce half made up". Because he "cannot prove a lover", Richard therefore was "determined to be a villain".
By the end of the play, Richard killed everyone who stood in his way, became the king for a brief moment, and then spooky ghosts appeared to kill him. Typical Shakespearean tragedy.
I’m not going to verbatim line every plot-point up with regards to the next Dragon Age because that’s just not realistic, however, a lot of this text can corelate to Solas, and his scheme.
Solas walks through the current world of Thedas sent before his time, bitter at the state of his people. He has cast out his brethren to the Beyond, and the only tales that exist from that story paint him as the evil Dread Wolf, the greatest adversary in elven mythology. Feared and hated by the modern elves.
As of which, he has decided for himself to walk the journey of death - to restore the time of the elves. Henceforth, bringing happiness to his people once again, like a warm summer replacing a bitter winter.
However, poetic that may sound, Solas’s scheme will bring an end to Thedas as we know it, it seems only the elves will be spared, and the rest of the world will not endure. Even though Solas has a good intention - being the restoration of his own people, his plan of action will bring genocide.
Henceforth, Solas shares a lot of attributes with Richard, more poignantly, the line "cannot prove a lover" and therefore is "determined to be a villain" sticks out most to me. But scheming up a mass-death plot for your own desires is also a shared characteristic of the two.
The Book of Numbers:
Moving on, the second narrative inspiration relates to the Bible. We gathered from another Mark Darrah tweet that Dragon Age 4 may take inspiration from the fourth book of the Old Testament in the Bible, being the book of Numbers.
"Numbers is the fourth one... "
"But if Genesis -> Origins
Exodus -> Exodus
Leviticus -> Inquisition
Numbers -> … "
The book starts following Moses leading the people of Israel on their way to find the Promise Land that God had given to them, however, the Israelites quickly began to complain, murmur and disobey Moses’ leadership. For these acts, God destroyed approximately 15,000 of them through various means.
When they arrived at the borders of their Promise Land, they sent spies into the land. Upon hearing their fearful report concerning the conditions of this promise land, the Israelites refused to take possession of it.
For rejecting their God given-land, God condemned them to death in the wilderness until a new generation could grow up and carry out this task. The book ends with a new generation of Israelites crossing into the promise land, whom had no knowledge of their ancestor's previous sinfulness and rejection of the land.
In short, God raised up a new group of his people, who had forgotten their previous generation’s past, and instead had complete obedience to God so they could take what was originally promised to them.
This story has another relation to Solas, because, of course, the next game’s narrative is going to be about his scheme to destroy the Veil.
Solas is leading the elves on his mission of annihilation, that will usher in a new age for his kind. An age where the elves will soon forget their previous troubles, that they face in present Thedas, but a new world where they can thrive with wonderful magic and immortality.
Solas declared that the people need him. The current elves known as the Dalish face falsehoods and misunderstandings of their history, culture and religion. Which Solas resents and seeks a change.
Like God, Solas is raising a newer generation of his people for a post-veil world. The older generation like the Dalish know Fen’harel as a monstrous God. If a newer generation was not taught this, they could live and thrive with Solas, not knowing he had destroyed Thedas, to bring them a new reality.
DC’s Legends of Tomorrow:
And, the final, none literature-based inspiration relates to DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, as hinted by Patrick Weekes stating that their perfect reference for a narrative beat might be something done on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
“Same goes in the writer room. MY perfect reference for a narrative beat might be something done on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, but since I’m the only writer who watches that show, I guess I better learn how to speak whatever Darmok and Jalad today’s teens use at Tanagra.”
The CW show surrounds about a bunch of DC super heroes that save the timeline by visiting iconic eras and historical figures, uncovering greater evils that threat humanity as they know it. Patrick’s tweet inspired me to pick the show back up again, because I loved watching the Arrowverse shows as a teenager, but stopped around 2017, when I started University. However, I was greatly surprised with the show’s progression since it’s sub-par first season.
I very much enjoyed the show’s cast of characters and the chemistry they each shared, especially the inclusion of my Liverpudlian lad, working-class warlock John Constantine. The best character in the show in my opinion with all of his British splendour.
So, what could the Dragon Age team take away as inspiration from the show? Well, the banter and character interactions are what truly defines the show, no matter what enemy they face, the team manage to ragtag together and defeat the evils that harm them as a family. And there’s always time for romance within the Legends, so plenty of unique character interactions could inspire many narratives.
With huge casts of characters, the Arrowverse shows often collaborate together creating an epic narrative that spans multiple episodes. Perhaps the Dragon Age team are finding inspiration for involving so many new and old characters into a narrative? With many faces meeting for the first time, and many original characters joining the ride one last time.
Or, if they’re taking a very literal reference from the show, well, Legends of Tomorrow is all about time-travel. Are we dealing with more time magic in the next game? Is Solas going back in time to stop the Veil, and our new main character with their new squad are rivalling him throughout time itself?
Regardless, these are just my thoughts and speculations on hinted media that may inspire the next Dragon Age’s narrative. I believe there was also a Muppets tweet by Patrick Weekes, however, will less context, so I’m not too sure about that one, but if any of you guys can unravel this one, let me know.
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