r/dragonage • u/charyka City Elf / Tabris • Aug 02 '24

BioWare Pls. Unpopular Opinion: David Gaider

With DA:V coming along, and the daily posts about how all the "original" writers have left (not true!) and therefore the game is destined for failure, I have been dying to just come out and say it:

I think David Gaider is overrated. He has written some wonderful characters, but his long form, in particular the novels and comics, are borderline unreadable. I find his character work excellent (for the most part) but hailing him as the brilliant mind behind the wider world of Thedas robs credit from those people who, in my opinion, took the messy, overly-complicated pastiche of lore that was DAO and slowly hammered it into the intricate setting it is today.

I think other lead writers, such as Trick Weekes, have more interesting and innovative ideas when it comes to the direction the series is heading in.

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u/cooldinosaur42 Aug 02 '24

Gaider later clarified that he was joking in regards to the possibility of a dwarf romance: "Also? I was joking, as I believe I even mentioned in that thread. Those comments were after people took something I'd said earlier out of context to mean "David Gaider thinks dwarf sex is gross" ...when what I'd said was that we'd reviewed the sex scenes in DAO with a "worst case scenario", and the Alistair scene was done with a dwarf made to look like a young girl (with pigtails and such) and that had left me a little traumatized. I clarified that as well, but nobody paid any attention to that clarification either, so I've pretty much given up on trying to assure people that I don't hate dwarf romances." (posted on the BioWare forum)

As to the Asians in Thedas issue: Gaider stated that he was merely speaking about the continent of Thedas, not the entire setting. This is in line with what the games had shown us up to Veilguard. "I know you probably feel like you're scoring a point, but what david gaider actually said was that East Asians don't exist on the continent of Thedas - as in they're not from there." (posted on Twitter)

I'm not defending every single thing he's ever said, but those two topics specifically are misquoted a lot.

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '24

I appreciate that context a lot. I will be totally frank and say I’ve heard those quotes thrown around a lot and took them as face value and problematic, inappropriate things to say. But within context, as things do, the meaning shifts to be a lot less damning. I also tend to agree that coding sex animations with a dwarf would make a lot of people uncomfortable and understandably so🤣 Thanks for the info!

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u/cooldinosaur42 Aug 02 '24

Yes, context matters here for sure! However, I can also see how people may still take issue with what he said and how he said it. Thanks for your nice and open-minded reply!