The Dragon Age Netflix series should focus on the Dragon Age 2 companions
The thought of a Dragon Age series has either filled a Dragon Age fan with dread or excitement – there’s really no in-between. As for me, I’m all for it. IF, and this is a big IF, this Dragon Age Netflix series focuses on the Dragon Age 2 companions entirely and doesn’t touch on anything to do with either Hawke, The Warden, and especially not The Inquisitor.
My reason for being so against this is because anything to do with Hawke, The Warden, or The Inquisitor would feel very much like an establishment of canon, and while BioWare has done just that in previous tie-ins to the games like its comics, a focus on the previous three protagonists would be walking over ground that’s already been well-tread.
Hawke’s story ultimately got cut short due to mismanagement from EA, and while I’m still very salty about that, I would hate for it to be brought back in a media form that doesn’t allow interaction from players. As for The Warden, there are so many endings for that character it would be impossible to fit everyone’s expectations in one character, and as for The Inquisitor… Well, I find them a flat and uninspiring character in every single way in comparison to Hawke/Warden, so I’d rather a Netflix series focus on anything but them.
If this supposed Netflix series – it has yet to be officially confirmed outside of a reliable, anonymous source from Giant Freakin Robot – does come to pass however, it should focus on characters that we know already. That might be an unpopular opinion – we already know a lot about previous companions after all – but I truly think that it could add a lot to the series credibility to focus on characters that fans already feel some connection to.
So, I’m just going to say it: the Dragon Age Netflix series should focus on the Dragon Age 2 companions. Yes, I know! I’m very predictable, but it is what it is and I’m not even a little sorry about it. But I promise the reason isn’t just because I think Hawke’s companions are superior to everyone else, but because they were there when shit hit the fan with the Mages and Templars. Yes, that ‘sort of’ gets fixed in Dragon Age: Inquisition depending on who you pick as Divine, but we never get a timeline on what happened to some of the companions as they go on the run after the ending of the second game. We know Varric gets captured, and he and Isabela eventually end up hanging around with Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins, but the timeline before that is so incredibly murky that I think it would be a real, intriguing period of time to examine as a series.
Most of my curiosity actually revolves around Merrill, which might come as a surprise for anyone who knows how much I love Isabela but Merrill is a character that, in my humble opinion, was completely shafted by the narrative in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Her research into Eluvians made her a perfect candidate not only for her being able to tell the Inquisition more about their potential, but her background would have made her a perfect foil to Solas. Instead, Merrill and the other companions are reduced to a footnote in history, despite being key players.
The reason for this is, well, BioWare likes to shift perspectives a lot. They do it with a lot of characters – including their main heroes – and while that can be a good thing, I think it’d be a fatal mistake for the Dragon Age Netflix series. We’ve got a lot of new stories coming out, including yet another new comic and that’s perfectly fine, but there are so many different things about characters that have been left out in the open. How Isabela got a new ship, why did Merrill decide to stay behind, Aveline after the destruction of Kirkwall, Anders on the run, even Sebastian and his plan to take back Starkhaven.
Ultimately we don’t even know if Netflix is actively working on a Dragon Age show, but if they are… Well, you know what I’m hoping for.
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