Reddit reviews Dragon Age Vol. 1: The Silent Grove

Pick up the trilogy written by Gaider and published by Dark Horse and read them in this order: The Silent Grove, Those Who Speak, Until We Sleep. Alternatively, the Library Edition compiles the three comics into a nice hardcover already in the proper order and with interesting marginalia by Gaider himself explaining the thought process behind a lot of the decisions in the comics.

The comics miniseries Dragon Age written by Orson Scott Card and published by IDW you can pretty much skip. It's really badly written, it features no known characters, it connects to no plot at all that we currently follow through the games, it piles up Twilight level of terribad romance clichés and it's just... really not good mmkay.

As for personal opinions of the Gaider series... there are soft spoilers here, kay. I can dig where he takes Alistair as a character, although his Alistair is clearly a softie, because a hardened Alistair comes to that same place about ten years earlier during the Blight itself. So there's definitely some cognitive dissonance with my personal playthroughs there, but well. I enjoy seeing Alistair beyond DAO in any form, so I just deal with it. I like that Maric's story gets some closure, even if it's... let's just say, not anyone's ideal scenario, for the sake of avoiding major spoilers. I don't have to necessarily like how a character's fate turns out to acknowlege that this is what happened to them and it's what we have to deal with. I like the deeper insights into Varric's and Isabela's pasts and how it's shaped them, for better or worse, and find it very humanizing that there are some secrets we hold so close that even Hawke never managed to get it out of them.

I don't like that we have an adventure set entirely in Antiva, involving the Crows, and all Zevran gets is a teeny tiny namedrop and that's it. I don't like that we have an adventure entirely set in Tevinter, involving magisters and slaves, and Fenris doesn't even get a teeny tiny namedrop for his trouble. I don't like that in the only chance we'll ever have of seeing Alistair, Cailan and Maric interact, Cailan is reduced to a namedrop. What a wasted opportunity for a truly punch-in-the-nuts emotional scene, damn. These things are rather minor, but missing details like these make the universe of the comics seem disconnected, like they exist in a bubble of their own. I would have appreciated a little more effort to make it seem like the things and people that shape these characters' lives matter more.

But overall, I enjoy them. I love that we get to see Antiva and Tevinter first hand, even if only for a brief glimpse, it's much better than relying on third party narrative forever. Some scenes in the Fade made me cry, I won't even front it. Maevaris is the baddest bitch in the place, I would play a whole spinoff series based solely on her. I love Yavanna, and I love that, in true older sister form, she thinks Morrigan is just a whiny brat. I love the full circle of mutual respect that Alistair and Sten's sort of not-really-friendship comes to. I live and breathe for Varric lampshading His Royal Highness Alibooboo's special snowflake syndrome in his most perfectly timed deadpan. The comics are not without fault, but there is certainly a lot to like in there.

Monkey!

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