Grey Wardens in Dragon Age The Veilguard vs Origins | Writing Comparison

[@artemisarrow179]

I see the true blight was letting Marvelbrains into BioWare’s writing staff

[@Agent_Cobalt]

More like let into an empty room

[@wolfpaw-yz9fk]

More then just the Marvelbrains. But yeah. The quirky tumblr stuff couldn't end soon

[@Varius18]

I honestly remember playing Origins as a kid growing up and I thought the Grey Wardens were sick as hell, fighting back the encroaching darkness, it was just pure fun and a great experience to be apart of. And having grown up with Lord of the Rings thanks to my father just made this game feel even better since I already loved fantasy genres. But seeing how they have just become… just really big dicks and the Dark Spawn just look… silly, makes me sad to see, I’d love to see OG Dark Spawn roll up and just show what fear they brought in the past.

[@MsIorveth]

they still are dont let first warden fool you he is like 99% politician and 1% warden davrin and rook if you choose gray warden as faction are true wardens not this useless man veilguard is bad in many aspects lorewise or gameplay wise but one of the things they didnt fuck up was gray wardens

[@jaredstuteville6499]

Same, Origins was my first ever RPG. No matter what I'll always admire the wardens and the legion of the dead for facing off the darkspawn. This politician, I see a man who hasn't experienced first hand of the 5th blight and how much they lost in Ferelden, while he stayed in the Anderfels talking or something. Also respect to Duncan. The Warden Commander of Ferelden and Savior of the main character who became the Hero of Ferelden. We'll always remember your last stand at the Battle of Ostagar.

[@Nutshellbound]

Duncan wasn't the Warden Commander of Ferelden. He was an itinerant recruiter. A lot of people seem to forget, the Wardens had technically been expelled from Ferelden, several generations before Origins. Other places they still have a presence, but it's nowhere near what they were. And for myself, I distinctly recall sacrificing My Hawke to prevent them dying out entirely. So. Which granted you'd think they'd be better disposed to the "remnants of the Inquisition" but they haven't been a unified force probably since shortly after the fourth bligh.

[@jaredstuteville6499]

@@Nutshellbound Odd. I recall it said he was commander around 9:10 to 9:30, as well as recruiting.

[@Nutshellbound]

9:10, 9:30 of what it's a six minute video. Anyway Duncan wasn't Commander of Ferelden or anywhere else. And there simply wasn't a Warden chapter in Ferelden because the king two kings back had flat out kicked them out. Incidentally Weisshaupt was a demon haunted ruin in Origins, which you can start to restore in DLC. There literally weren't Wardens in Ferelden, and while there seem to be now it's unlikely they're garrison is anywhere near full strength. Also possibly depending on events in Inquisition.

[@siriuswinter5545]

In war - victory, in peace - vigilance, in death - sacrifice!

[@Razzy-sr4oq]

In life, war. In death, peace. In life, shame. In death, atonement. --Death Korps of Krieg

[@Nutshellbound]

In life vigilance- In war sacrifice- In victory death. - The Grey Wardens.

[@yutingsooi5691]

Instead of this First Warden with bad writing, we could have had the Hero of Fereldan returning to lead the Grey Wardens to stop the blight instead🤦‍♀🤦‍♀🤦‍♀ Oh and most importantly? Players could have seen how the cure to the blight was found

[@delta2372]

That's kind of what they were setting up with the awakening DLC but that dlc has been completely forgotten about by dragon age 2. They really should have have just let us import our character from previous games, I couldn't give a damn about hawke or the Inquisitor (their games suck to)

[@Palpad100]

​@@delta2372 In defense of DA2 we did have quests associated with Dragon Age awakening.

[@yutingsooi5691]

@@Palpad100 And also I really like DA2 and Hawke DAI is a ‘It deserves the game of the year but meh’ to me But honestly after seeing this game it makes me feel DAI is a masterpiece 😂

[@yutingsooi5691]

@@delta2372 I would say the only complaint I had was the silent protagonist HoF 😂

[@delta2372]

@@yutingsooi5691 the silent protagonist is the best option, when you give the player character a voice it isn't a character that you create anymore nor is it a story that you are writing. It's a character given to you and you have to write their story for them. Only time I did not mind this was with the mass effect games but apart from that, I hate a voiced player character, BG3 had a rather interesting approach to it, your character talks at times but you are still choosing what he/she says in conversations and you can make the words your own rather choose option X and hear voiced character say line A.

[@ShiningFingerStudio]

I mean Inquisition already featured the Grey Wardens as having fallen to corruption, but yeah, they're laying it on awfully thick here, especially for the OGs, the main player faction of the, well, origins of the series. From a meta standpoint, you could say that the entire Dragon Age universe was built around them, so the fact that the writers not only gradually strayed away from them is weird, but turned them into a minor nuisance in one of the sequals is... just... I can't understand what they where thinking. Please tell me that the Veilguard don't actually kill a Blighted Dragon/God in the game, considering that it used to be a major plot point that only a creature that has undergone the Grey Warden mutations can kill one of those things at the cost of their life. Be really infuriating if they just spat on the climactic sacrifice of the first game.

[@Astewir]

To you first point, that is true, it was even maybe interesting to see in inquisition what would happened if they were corrupt, but as you say, for me it is the main "brand" of the universe and the lore is just not there anymore in the veilguard. They are there, but just to be. As for the second part, they do... even without sacrifice of the warden.

[@jaredfrancis5062]

@@Astewir so more retcons... yay. just add it to the list I guess. Griffons were extinct now some random elf has one as a pet, immersion breaking modern day language, getting a lecture about misgendering and the only real decision you can make is to not complete companion quests so they all die for the "bad end" I don't think I will even buy this game on sale

[@Tlevids]

@@jaredfrancis5062 Tbf the griffons' existence was soft retconned years ago in the novel 'The Last Flight', but yes the cutesy baby griffon is rather cringe, especially compared with pets in Origins lore like the smart but ferocious mabari war dogs or blighted wolves.

[@ShiningFingerStudio]

@@Astewir See, here's the thing. Anyone can kill a Darkspawn. The regular armies of the world do a decent enough job as is. What makes Grey Wardens the anti-darkspawn force is the fact that they undergo a controlled "blighting" which, aside from a boost to fighting capability and an ability to sense darkspawn, allows them to actually mortally wound the beings that organize the mindless darkspawn into an effective hoard. This is how the Grey Wardens where able to save the world. So now the epic Order/Brotherhood of people from every race and walk of life who abandoned the petty squabbles of their homes to combat the shared existential threat, at the cost of their ability to reproduce, live a normal life, where the equivalent of retirement is going on a suicide mission against the hoards of Blighted in the underground at a relatively young age, is made redundant by a team of plucky, "charming", rouges that's also a found family a la Guardians of the Galaxy... My rage is incandescent. I don't know whether to hope that they acknowledge this or not. It's probably easier to just think the writers forgot, rather than them try and give us some excuse that they can do this because of some power they have from their constant interaction with the Veil.

[@BBS-dl1lt]

@@ShiningFingerStudioto be fair a lot of those same themes you’re hating on Veilguard for are found in dragon age 2 as well though. I think the main difference is just the really bad retconning and writing. This story could have been done well. It just wasn’t.

[@AdamSzakter]

Dude...the devs really didn't play or watched any Origins content huh ?

[@ItamarO93]

The writers are twitter brains and ex-game jurnos so no, they never touched a game.

[@feiwong3634]

They are not developers, they are activists.

[@editorrbr2107]

I trust we all know that the idiocy began within inquisition, correct? That game, alongside Andromeda, is patient zero for present day Bioware Brain Rot

[@redram6080]

Absolutely. There's a lot of things in Inquisition that I loved but there's no denying that most things bad in this game can be found in Inquisition, it was just handled a lot better back then

[@HanaTheSloth]

I would say Dragon Age 2 was the beginning of the end. Several of the issues going all out now first popped up in that game. It was simply overlooked due to better characters and writing. Maybe I'm wrong and it did start in Inquisition. Either way, it is borked.

[@roiking2740]

You can say it started with DA2... you can even say it started with DA:O.

[@bazzgaming27]

dragon age origins intro & the battle of ostagar cut scenes are some of the most goated cutscenes of all time. still get chills every time i watch these two cutscenes

[@Kat1kafka]

I really hate how they turned the grey wardens into weak idiots

[@SValens]

Unfortunately, they started doing that in Inquisition, and though I liked Inquisition, that is one thing I truly hated.

[@olga-gaming1805]

I'm going to be replaying origins to inquisition

[@olga-gaming1805]

@@nicholasmorgan7609 yeah two was my least favorite before veilguard but now anymore

[@delta2372]

Nah screw the sequels, origins is the only good game in this series.

[@Riverfall_]

IDK. I had bad impression of First Warden at first (like you are supposed to)... but looking at the game as a whole. He is one of the few, if not the only character that. A) Doesn't immediately believe that Rook is the savior of the world and joins team good guys. B) Isn't an evil guy who immediately joins the elven gods at first opportunity. In Veilguard it's either A or B, black and white with no in-between. So on that front First Warden is truly grey for this game standard. (though this speaks less about him as a character but rather about the game as a whole.)

[@Choppete]

The blight literally changing 10 years ago because of corypheus…

[@ДобрыйХаосит-х6ф]

Actually... If forget about how they speak, FW has a point. Some shady, uknown figure come to him and says some shit about "You don't understand what this blight is!" and "they are led by old elven gods!" Ofc FW would be pissed. "I don't recon you brought me any actual proof"(c) and so on. So the problem is not with FW, as for me, but with Rook.

[@ItamarO93]

More like the writers are idiots, so they can't write a coflict without one side also being an idiot.

[@scarocci7333]

Your video is a bit dishonest because you don't adress the redemption arc of the first warden if you don't punch him but choose to convince him instead, after you realize the archdemon was fucking with his head the whole time.

[@Kat1kafka]

I wished they kept the blue smoking grey eyes in the cgi trailer as a grey warden trait.

[@BBS-dl1lt]

Why? That was never depicted in game.

[@Kat1kafka]

@BBS-dl1lt it's kinda obvious,I mean, why are they called "grey" wardens? Plus, the blue themes in the grey warden armor hence the blue smoke,it fits

[@zzDarkenSoulzz]

@@Kat1kafka thought it was because they didn't fall under any one kingdoms colors. just guessing haven't played origins in a hot minute.

[@BBS-dl1lt]

@@Kat1kafka but it’s not depicted in game? At no point in origins did they ever have glowing grey/blue eyes. Nor in any subsequent game.

[@Spiralpaladin]

@@BBS-dl1lt Larius in Dragon Age 2 Legacy kind of had that color to his eyes, even if it wasn't smoking. Something you could argue was due to the taint getting to such an advanced stage.

[@Jay3up]

Grey wardens after DA2 have basically been turned into the most incompetent faction in Thedas

[@Spiralpaladin]

Inquisition, they could honestly be forgiven for because Solas purposely set them up for Corypheus to turn into pawns.

[@jcsturgeon]

It's crazy how poor media literacy is. In Origins we got a very pro Warden side of the story. Narrated by a couple Grey Wardens.. The whole point of this game is that everything, even the machinations of the "gods" comes back to petty politics that WE have to overcome.

[@aquatrez]

I feel like everyone screaming "bad writing" don't know what good writing actually is. Bad writing is presenting an organization that was previously shown as solely heroic/good as instead imperfect and arrogant!? I feel like I'm being gaslit...

[@jcsturgeon]

@@aquatrez And people mock Veilguard for being too nice and you can't play evil... but it's kind of refreshing to have a small group of emotionally intelligent and hard working people band together to stop a world ending threat? Like, that's how you would want people to act!

[@corruptangel6793]

Origins took play 400 years after the first blight ended. Vailguard says the blight had been unchanged for a thousand years. So the first blight lasted 600 years? Damn. The first Archdemon must have been a shit leader 🤣 Also, an athiest warden. Now that's funny

[@cttommy73]

Not 400 years after the first blight. 400 years after the last. They gave you a timeline in the codex. The first blight lasted a hundred to 200 years. Followed by nearly a century for the second and decreasing each blight The fourth lasted a little over a decade and the fifth, the most recent with the weakest Archdemon was just a little over a year.

[@corruptangel6793]

​@@cttommy732:50 The intro of Origins, shown in this very video, has Duncan literally explain the first Blight, the creation of the wardens, and him saying, "It's been four centuries since THAT victory" meaning that the 2nd through 4 Blights all happened within 400 years and now a 5th Blight has begun. Yet in Vailgaurd, the Warden says the Darkspawn have remained unchanged for a thousand years. So either Vailguard takes place 600 years after Origins, or they're claiming the first Blight lasted 600 years. Though, the truth is obviously that they ignored the established lore.

[@Dandrys]

I liked the "ser" instead of "sir" at the end. Shows how much they put effort to detail 😂 or maybe she's talking about cheese

[@DarkKing009]

The disrespect the to Grey Wardens the organization that built this fraction. inspired by The Night's Watch form a song of ice and fire.

[@KisekiFan]

they purposefully made it this way, if you seen who the writer is and what he/she/whatever stand for you will see this is all written like this for the sole purpose of self insertion, white male dominating leader, no matter what choice you make he still dies and a rookie female warden takes over as the next commander because for some reason other higher officers aren't fit for the job. Honestly, just play Origins, the gameplay is not the best and you may not like it but the story, characters and theme is well written and is the best DA series. Also your choice really matters in Origins unlike the fake choice making in Veilguard.

[@AStrangeWindmill]

And I suppose they made the warden leader in inquisition a woman so consumed by her duty bound fear of the blight that she aligned with a risen tevinter lord to show that women are too overemotional for leadership? God forbid a writer just make a character. Always gotta be a boogeyman with you people.

[@jaredfrancis5062]

god I loved Origins, I played an untold number of hours to get every possible ending. had a playthrough as every race as well.

[@egorsgor228]

@@jaredfrancis5062 try solo run!

[@justauser6078]

>white male dominating leader, no matter what choice you make he still dies He can die like a warden. They all die. Sooner, or later. >and a rookie female warden takes over as the next commander because for some reason other higher officers aren't fit for the job. 1. That is the choice of the Player. 2. You can make white man do it. My character was exactly that.

[@angelamurao8273]

If the Elven Gods are connected to the Blight, wouldn't the Wardens see them in their dreams? They can see the Archdemon in their dreams which ensures that the Blight is the Blight, wouldn't they be able to see the Elven Gods as well? I mean the sole reason why the Grey Wardens can seperate Darkspawn attacks and the Blight is because of those dreams so if they knew, and the likes of yhe Architect and Corypheus appearing out if nowhere to start Blights, why wouldn't they take the 'conspiracies' of Rook as another similarly powerful individual jump starting the Blight

[@ItamarO93]

Look at you, expecting the current day Bioware writers to know the lore and be compatent. What, do you expect the game to be good as well?!? Don't you know that it triggers them, you bigot!?!

[@underdoge8338]

No, the Elven gods are cut off from everything in the Black City, it is a prison. The Old gods are "pieces" of the Elven Gods, extensions of themselves. When they become blighted they become archdemons. They were not sealed away and so they are able to speak to people in dreams. This is how they convinced the magisters to go to the black city and this is why the archdemons are connected to the Fade and dreams(this lore predates veilguard)

[@Nutshellbound]

There is literally no contradiction. Men are fallible. Wardens are fallible. And this is one man. Holding the line. As he has done. As the Wardens have done. As he believes he must. The only problem here is with your interpretation. The wardens have done worse.

[@L_Eres]

I feel, that if you replace dialogs with sims-speach in DAV - you won't fell difference.

[@ReCursedy]

Well their first reaction is well deserved - rook is an asshole and partly to blame for the shitstorm. Bioware knew that rook were wrong in every instance and need to somehow uplift it over other and whats easier way to do it if not discredit other factions with curse of incompetence.

[@chaoticneutralgiraffe5514]

Let me remind yall that the blight is now nothing more then a caged Titan untamed dream side effect (there's more to it, but this is the gist of the whole shabang)..... buh-bye and have fun..

[@rinohunter2252]

0:48 “The zim/zerbs at Buyerbeware sought to usurp Dragon Age, but instead they destroyed it.”

[@sunnyworldproductions4818]

I cauch that Veilguard is a massive downgrade of all the saga

[@Spiralpaladin]

Even 'massive' isn't a fitting enough word to express how grievously disrespectful it is to the saga.

[@roiking2740]

They wasted two potential games that we could have had with the Grey Warden as a main character.

[@zerraman420]

damn i knew i shouldit have made my dwarf grey warden in origins an asshole lol

[@ChrisDeebo]

This is terrible comparison 1. The First Warden is pretty on brand for a Northern Warden. Even in lore Weissphaut Wardens are said to be more politically focused 2. The Blight lets Warden get away with literally ANYTHING so long as it ends the Blight. So no matter how many people die it doesn't matter to the Wardens as long as the archdemon is dead 3.The threat of the Elven Gods is still pretty unknown at both instances in Veilguard, all anyone outside the main cast knows is the Blight is changing Hell lets not get into how all the Ferelden Warden are basically butchered at the start the game leaving only like 2 or 3 alive

[@mickeyveach3612]

It's a canon event that the First Warden is always an ass.

[@jaredfrancis5062]

really? it seemed more to me that the default Rook is an entitled ass. devs leaned pretty heavily into the self inserts it seems.

[@mickeyveach3612]

@jaredfrancis5062 of course it would seem that way to you in an out of context clip where the player was clicking all the angry dialogue options.

[@valathislegacy]

​@@mickeyveach3612I think the first wardens actions make a lot of sense. For one You've been a gray warden for a long time and the history of the gray wardens is something you know very well and some random person you don't know is coming up to you telling you some crazy stories about old gods that have been mythical fantasies. Of course you're not going to believe them, And as for the final part where he's trying to send all the gray wardens out to fight well, that is literally their entire point for existing. Like remember how in origins gray wardens would dutifully die fighting the blight if they could kill as many darkspawn as they could before they would die. And not to mention that every gray warden is essentially on a time limit before they eventually receive the call and would just go down into The deep roads where they would die fighting as many darkspawn as they could for the purpose of killing as many of them as possible before they die.

[@Haloways]

this is way i deleted from steam library + varrick deaths

[@shikalakabum]

More like Gay Wardens now

[@MRTwizyfizzy]

Hey there pal, time to pull a barf for that.

[@garroshhellscream594]

This first warden is one of the worst characters ever written in DA. The guy is a stupid blind asshole for the sake of creating an artificial conflict. I don't know what they were aiming to. Creating a second Loghain, maybe? But Loghain was not entirely wrong because a lot of things escaped Cailan, he actually did conspired with the empress Celene to some extent, the wardens were disbanded because of treason before, and you have the background of Loghain to explain what he acts that way. The story shows that it's a mix of folly and intelligence that ends up leading him to this way. And the first warden, when the last Blight was 20 years ago, believe that it is predictable? The last archdemon remained underground for the sole purpose of letting everyone imagine it was not a real Blight but just a major darkspawn incursion, only to show up after the Fereldian royal army was destroyed, taking advantage of having, on paper, no more wardens and organized force to stop it. Back then, when they were eldritch monsters of the voids corrupting dragons gods of Tevinter, the darkspawns were indeed vicious and cunning. It even strike Ferelden because it was the country where the order was as its weakest, only a dozen of them at best. Why? To give him a false redemption, dying before striking the false archdemon, and coming back for no purpose in Davrin's personal quest before he kills him.

[@hadi9344]

All i can say is....Iam SAD

[@makara204]

In Origins, Grey Wardens have the Space Marine vibe. Now we have Gae Wardens. It's been going downhill since inquisition tbh.

[@AStrangeWindmill]

There's no less than three warden's pictured with Duncan's character, but you stay fixated on that one dude who lacks it. Weird. Did we do this with Clarel too, while ignoring Stroud?

[@ramonserna8089]

Origins was so good 😢. What the hell happened bioware? You were supposed to end the woke, not join them!