20: Hic abundant indigeni: Spatial Constructions of Indigeneity in the Dragon Age games

Sven Gins, @SvenGins, University of Groningen

The Dragon Age (DA) games allow players to explore the fantastic world of Thedas and shape its fate. Like other medievalesque games, the games provide players with a world map. DA 1-3 respectively cover the land of Ferelden (DA: Origins, 2009), the city of Kirkwall (DA II, 2011), and Ferelden and Orlais (DA: Inquisition, 2014). DA maps follow cartographic conventions, providing an abstract visual representation of Thedas. The lands are inspired by our own world. For instance, Ferelden is modelled after popular notions of medieval England; Orlais resembles eighteenth-century France, and so on. The game developers also used Jewish and First Nation history for the subaltern elves. I cannot speak to the adequacy of these analogies.45 My paper qualifies DA’s use of cartography and how that informs its construction of indigeneity. Where in Thedas can players encounter indigenous humans?

Long before the events of the first game, Ferelden was populated by the Alamarri, a coalition of human tribes. Over time, several tribes split off, while most of the others were united by the medievalesque Calenhad dynasty. Two Indigenous-coded tribal cultures remain: the Chasind & the Avvars.46 Players briefly meet several Chasind in the village of Lothering (DA1). One Chasind, called ‘Doomsayer’, generates panic as he senses the player’s corrupted blood. This is unusual as Doomsayer is not a mage; he has no capacity for magic. Two other unnamed Chasind refugees are immediately accused of crime when players approach them: “You marsh folk are all thieves and liars!” a Fereldan villager shouts.47 According to the game codices, the Chasind “Wilders” indeed reside in the Korcari Wilds marshlands, “forgotten corners of Thedas,” depicted on the game map in southernmost Ferelden.48

The Avvars are also introduced as hostile swamp people.49 In DA3, players first encounter them in a gloomy region known as the ‘Fallow Mire’ (within the Korcari Wilds). Players can learn more about Avvar tribes via DA3’s downloadable content pack, Jaws of Hakkon, which takes place in the Frostback Basin—again a dangerous swampy place on the southern fringes of the map. Like the Korcari Wilds, it is a place where no humans but the local “barbarians” can abide.50 These regions are all marginal inhospitable areas, wilderness infested with monsters like darkspawn, zombies, even dragons. The tribes’ capacity to “eke out an existence even there,” in proximity to danger and chaos, evokes the ‘Noble Savage’ & ‘Magical Native American’ tropes.51

45 I recommend reading the following, thorough examination: Lydia Brake, “Indigenous Coding in Dragon Age,” Medium, 20.11.2020, consulted 20.05.2022. 46 “Codex Entry: The Chasind,” Dragon Age Wiki, consulted 27.04.2022; “Codex Entry: The Avvars,” Dragon Age Wiki, consulted 01.06.2022. 47 “Dragon Age: Origins – Episode 10: Lothering,” YouTube video, 42:56, uploaded by “MrRhexx” 06.12.2014, 28:00; 33:00, consulted 20.05.2022. 48 “Codex Entry: Ostagar,” Dragon Age Wiki, consulted 01.06.2022; “Specialization: Shapeshifter,” Bioware Social Network, consulted 27.05.2022. 49 “Hand of Korth,” Dragon Age Wiki, consulted 21.05.2022; “Movran the Under,” Dragon Age Wiki, consulted 21.05.2022. 50 “Codex Entry: The Frostback Basin,” Dragon Age Wiki, consulted 01.06.2022; “Codex Entry: The Korcari Wilds,” Dragon Age Wiki, consulted 01.06.2022. 51 “Codex Entry: The Chasind”. Also see: Jim Wilson, “Hidalgo (2004),” in LeAnne Howe, Harvey Markowitz and Denise K. Cummings (eds.), Seeing Red—Hollywood’s Pixeled Skins: American Indians and Film (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2013), 70.

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Significantly, no map is truly neutral; they always reflect power relations. DA inevitably draws from a cultural and historical unconscious about human identity and its borders. Medieval mappaemundi such as the English Psalter map and the Hereford Mappa Mundi also locate barbarism and so-called monstrous races (e.g., Troglodytes, Sciapods, Anth ropophages, Cynocephali, etc.) in their margins, far from the allegedly civilised centre.52 In emulating this centre/periphery distinction, DA effectively ‘others’ and exoticizes its indigenous tribes. It also utilises place as metaphor for time: the peripheral areas populated by tribespeople are framed as primitive, pagan and un(der)developed areas.53 Players’ invasive ‘Inquisition’—sanctioned by the Chantry, a religious institution resembling the Catholic Church—in DA3 thus has unsettling colonial connotations.54 Indeed, to discover landmarks and gain experience and power, players must ‘claim’ these sites by planting their Inquisition banner there.

Fig. 20.1: English Psalter map, courtesy of British Library Board (MS add. 28681, f. 9r)

52 For more on cartography, paradoxography, and the politics of marginalisation, see: Paul Zumthor, La Mesure du monde: Répresentation de l’espace au Moyen Âge (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1993); Lorraine Daston and Catherine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature: 1150-1750 (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 21-48. 53 On this trope, see: Carolyn Dinshaw, How Soon Is Now? Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time (Durham: Duke University Press, 2012), 69-78; 140; K. Patrick Fazioli, The Mirror of the Medieval: An Anthropology of the Western Historical Imagination (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2017), 46; 59-64. 54 Also see: Michael Fuchs , Vanessa Erat, and Stefan Rabitsch, “Playing Serial Imperialists: The Failed Promises of BioWare’s Video Game Adventures,” The Journal of Popular Culture 51, No. 6 (2018): 1476-1499. 54

Medievalisms oscillate between historical accuracy (fidelity to historical evidence) and authenticity (plausibility for modern audiences).55 To this I would add a third category: historical adequacy (due consideration of representational implications). Using this as a conceptual lens, historians can respond to representations of the past and make tacit preconceptions seem less natural or authoritative— encouraging us to rethink the stories we tell about the past, mindful of the meanings they (re)produce in today’s world. A more ‘adequate’ approach in this case might be to recentre future maps with attention to who ends up in the margins and to ensure—through timely involvement of cultural consultants during game development—that characters are depicted with care for the cultures that inspired them.

55 Andrew B.R. Elliott, Remaking the Middle Ages. The Methods of Cinema and History in Portraying the Medieval World (Jefferson: McFarland, 2011), 111.

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