The following article contains minor spoilers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s first two acts, especially about Taash’s personal quests.
Summary
Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Taash is an interesting case study of how a modern story deals with both gender identity and cultural identity. Taash is a Qunari raised in Rivain by their mother, a historian who was fiercely loyal to the Qun but left Par Vollen to prevent her daughter from being forced to join the Antaam (military).
This has left Taash with somewhat of an identity crisis, having grown up around Rivaini culture but with a parent who insisted on educating them in the ways of the Qun. In their personal quests, Rook helps Taash grapple with their identity questions, in both gender (being non-binary) and culture.
Identity Crisis
However, the cultural part of Taash’s identity ultimately comes down to a single binary choice that Rook makes during one of Taash’s personal quests. You can encourage Taash to embrace the Rivaini part of their culture or the Qunari part. Firstly, it probably shouldn’t be Rook making this decision considering Taash’s story is about finding their own identity. But also, the choice is weirdly absolute considering you could previously encourage Taash to embrace all aspects of their character.
These contradictions haven’t gone unnoticed by Dragon Age fans, with userShilohSaidGomaking a Reddit thread on the topic. They make a very good comparison, saying you wouldn’t tell a Korean-Canadian person to embrace their Canadian side at the expense of their Korean side. With multiculturalism, all aspects of their character combine to define who they are as people, and how they navigate potential cultural issues is for them to decide.
The reason for this bafflingly binary choice is that all companions in Dragon Age: The Veilguard have Rook encourage them to make a crucial decision, and this decides which of two outfits they unlock. For Taash, BioWare had that decision be their cultural identity, even though that contradicts with their overall character arc. It’s strange, but you can see why BioWare crafted Taash’s narrative in this manner.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
WHERE TO PLAY
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.
