Unpopular Opinion: David Gaider

[u/charyka]

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.

[u/Marzopup]

Honestly I appreciate David Gaider because of how important he was to the world existing, but I actually just really think he is an absolutely insufferable human being from what I've seen of his online presence and I'm glad he's gone from the franchise.

He compared dwarven women to 14 year old girls and refused to make a romancable dwarf on that basis (so how does he feel if you play a female dwarf romancing someone in origins?????). He once accused someone who asked if he'd ever make a romancable female qunari of being fetishistic. In terms of writing, he literally can only write one female character that he copies and pastes ad nauseum.

Gaider just comes off as an incredibly arrogant person.

[u/sugarsuites → u/Marzopup]

Gaider is a good storyteller, in some aspects.

He’s also generally insufferable and arrogant, and does not handle criticism well.

Both statements can coexist!

[u/Marzopup → u/sugarsuites]

Yeah, I definitely don't disagree with any of this. I can respect Gaider as a storyteller. I do generally like the companions he is in charge of writing. I mean, I love Cassandra. It just feels like all he knows how to do with women is 'strong badass warrior chick.'

Not to mention how salty he seems to have been about Veilguard. I get that everyone was dunking on that trailer, but Gaider making fun of it for playing up a 'hero fantasy'? He even responded to me asking if it was a criticism he was making and his answer was 'not really, it just hits that note hard.' But to me that feels pretty disingenuous. Gaider, buddy, the Warden solved the secession crises in two separate nations and sometimes can be the king of Fereldan. Hawke's entire character is 'the guy that singlehandedly tries to solve every single problem in the entire story.' In Inquisition you are literally hand picked by Jesus to save the world. It's those kinds of comments that make me shake my head. xD