Morrigan disapproves
This post contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins.
Mages are vitally important in Dragon Age. At Ostagar, Duncan chastises Alistair for his snarky behavior towards them, claiming they can’t afford to antagonize such powerful allies. If, later in the game, you express your concern to Irving over the losses at the Tower, he’ll argue that even one mage can be enough to turn the tide of a battle.
They’re right. Unless you’re playing on Easy or have preternatural talent, Dragon Age is brutally difficult without making good use of magic. Between healing the party and managing large crowds of enemies, the mage is the most indispensable class in the game.
It figures, then, that the first one who accompanies you is such a pain to get along with.
Here is a partial list of actions that Morrigan disapproves of: helping a community of starving refugees, deceiving a demon who threatens to possess a young child, searching for a bereaved man’s missing daughter, helping a waitress escape her life of poverty, refusing to defile a sacred relic, and falling in love. Any character who doesn’t act in absolute self-interest will have a hard time befriending Morrigan.
Even the dialogue choices will tease you. After she refused to help with some menial task or other, my cursor hovered over “I should have known you’d be a selfish bitch” for a few seconds before, grudgingly, I went with “As you wish.” Can’t afford to antagonize the mages!
(Actually, I just looked up the context for that exchange — it turns out that I asked her if she could teach the Shapeshifter specialization, and she refused because her approval rating was too high.)
The real kicker is that the only other mage companion is Morrigan’s diametrical opposite. While Morrigan seems irritated by the mere thought of helping someone, Wynne is virtuous and compassionate. As a result, virtually every decision you make will upset one of them — but since they’re the only mages you have, you need to do what you can to keep them in your good graces.
It’s really a shrewd bit of design on BioWare’s part. The player has to make difficult decisions with tangible in-game effects, but the consequences don’t feel contrived or unfair. I only wish the specialization unlocks did not carry over to new playthroughs; it’s a weaselly loophole that sidesteps some of the game’s most interesting moral choices.
Interesting post. Though I would point out that (as far as I know) approval and disapproval of choices only occurs when the character is in your party, so unless you’ve got both mages backing you up simultaneously, the one back at camp will never find out about your heartless/selfless actions.
Also, I accidentally discovered an even more weaselly loophole regarding the specializations: I purchased the Ranger and Templar tomes to unlock them, then accidentally did something I didn’t mean to, and re-loaded the save to just before the purchase. I still had the specializations, and still had the gold I’d previously spent!
Morrigan was the reason I didn’t quite finish the game. The request she makes late in the game felt wrong to me for a number of reasons and I refused to grant it, which resulted in Morrigan leaving, even though her approval at that point was 100. She had become absolutely essential to me by then and there simply wasn’t any question for me of continuing to play without her, so faced with making an unsatisfying narrative choice or an unsatisfying gameplay choice, I wound up making neither and abandoning the game. If I ever play through again I will definitely play as a mage and avoid all these approval issues.
Eric: Yeah, you’re generally right about approval. There are a couple of events (such as defiling the Ashes of Andraste or killing Connor/Isolde) that provoke delayed reactions next time you’re at camp, but that’s only in isolated situations and for specific people.
And that is quite a loophole! It seems like the unlocks carrying through to new playthroughs is a bug and not a feature…
Steven: I salute your commitment to staying in character! It is very easy to come to rely on the mages, though — especially if through your gameplay choices you only end up with one of them. If you can stomach it, you might consider dropping down to Easy — it’s very possible to get by with judicious use of health poultices, and at least you’d get to see the endgame.