I actually have a bunch of issues with the LGBT stuff in Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Every Dragon Age game has had LGBT characters, but Dragon Age Origins and II weren't as preachy about it. In Dragon Age II you could romance anybody regardless of gender and it wasn't a big issue.
I would like to take a second to point out that this was one of Dragon Age 2's
most criticized aspects, which is why we don't have everyone being bi in Inquisition.
In this game everybody has some kind of melodramatic Sob story about it. It feels like it's promoting an agenda rather than just making the game more accessible to different kinds of players. It's annoying and doesn't make the game more fun.
Dorian is really the only one who would qualify. Josie, Sera, and Bull really don't make any issue out of their sexuality at all. And I do agree the Dorian thing was kiiiiinda heavy handed, though handled in a way that
just barely fits lore (issue being he didn't want to marry and not that he was gay. Technically, he could be straight and want to marry for love and the quest would be very similar)
Dorian's personal quest is boring. Unlike the other companion quests, it doesn't have any action. There's no combat, like in Solas' quest, or an exciting cutscene, like in Sera's quest. It's just him crying about not feeling loved by his dad. Aside from that nothing you say to him or his father really affects anything.
That's more of a mechanic issue that has little to nothing to do with the actual content of LGBT issues. I don't actually mind it, sine I prefer the writing to the gameplay in most Dragon Age installments. We could have thrown in some tevinter guards who disagreed to fight, but would that really make much of a difference?
Either you go along with Dorian or you don't really do anything. It would be more interesting if you could side with his father and make Dorian leave the party or something along those lines. Why isn't that an option?
To be fair, that would be pretty objectively sh-tty. And I'm fairly confident Dorian would fight to the death before going (and that his dad wouldn't kill him) I guess you could have Dorian just up and leave you both, and I actually wouldn't object to that being included, but it kinda makes sense in-universe why you're not, seeing as most Inquisitor's are
rail-roaded into NOT liking Tevinter or its culture long before meeting Dorian. Though yes, they were obviously pushing the homosexuality is okay viewpoint, but that's not a Social Justice Warrior agenda. It's a pretty relative social issue, and they kinda have pushed i before. You don't think Origins and 2 were pushing the "homosexuality is okay" viewpoint either? Because they were, just in a less clumsy way.
As for Krem, the character is less entertaining than the other Chargers. You have a Dwarf who's obsessed with blowing stuff up, a human hating elf, a mage who denies being one, and the weird silent dude. Krem has no identity beyond being trans, I'd much rather see the other Chargers for more of the game than hear Krem's story about being discriminated against in Tevinter which is more or less the same as Dorian's backstory. Krem never really proves his worth as warrior, he's just there to tell you about transgenderism.
All the Chargers are one-dimensional. I really don't care about any of them, beyond the Dalish elf who amusingly insisted a staff is a bow. The rest... whatever. My issue with Krem is that being transgendered doesn't mix too well with what we understand of the Qun, but it was obviously brought in to explain the massive plothole of Tallis in the first place. Man do I hate her.
The main thing that pisses me off about both of these gay characters, is that there's no real conflict about it. The game doesn't give you the opportunity to fight people who might hate Krem or Dorian for their sexual identity, which would make their side stories more fun from a gameplay standpoint and feel more urgent. I'd much rather kill a few bigots than listen to people complain about bigotry. Another thing that would make these characters more interesting would be dialogue options allowing the inquisitor to react negatively towards them. It kind of sucks that the inquisitor has to be sexually tolerant and liberal, especially considering that you can make him/her a rotten authoritarian bastard in just about every other way. It's a real missed opportunity.
I dunno, I think "Murder the fake bigots!" would actually be MORE heavy handed and unnatural. As is, we have some thinly veiled parallels for real life stuff that just barely fit into the lore, and I'd really rather not take it too much further. But, again, this implies more of an issue with game mechanics than any SJW-ness.
As for the Inquisitor being sexually tolerant, I'd just like to point out it's been 100% established since Origins that Thedas is progressive in terms of race, sexuality, and gender for the most part. It just wouldn't make sense with the established universe.
Plus, I'd rather Bioware focus more energy on making actually morally gray choices than "Roleplay the meanest fantasy bigot of real life scenarios EVURRR!!!!" Especially since Bioware struggles with doing morally grey. Usually it's black/white (most of Origins and Mass Effect)
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