On Cassandra Pentaghasts Sexuality

Originally posted at Lady Business 29th April 2018.

I have a problem.

I mean, technically I have a bunch of those, but this one is very specific. I have a problem with Cassandra Pentaghast.

The sort of problem where I check her tag on tumblr first thing after coffee and email. The sort of problem where any conversation can become about Cassandra Pentaghast at a moment's notice. The sort of problem where I can headcanon wildly about her for hours upon hours at a time (hi Jay!).

That sort of problem.

But I also have a problem with the way she's portrayed in Dragon Age: Inquisition. And since this is a Bioware game, I am of course talking about her romance (because let's be honest, that's the reason most of us even play Bioware games in the first place---I can't be the only person who only completes major plot missions so I can further my chosen romance, can I?)

As a warning, this post is going to contain spoilers about Cassandra's romance plotline. I'll do my best to avoid spoilers for other parts of the game, but one or two may slip in.

So, Cassandra's romance. I desperately want to know what the developers were thinking when they made Cassandra Pentaghast straight.

Hoo boy you bet I am one of those fans.

Fortunately for me, I didn't start playing this game until a year or so after it came out so even though I immediately fell in love with Cassandra I knew she wasn't available as a romance option for a female Inquisitor. I've seen so many other fans playing the game who aren't aware of this and are utterly heartbroken when they find out, because the game does a really, really good job of making you think Cassandra is available for some lady-on-lady kissing.

And that I think, ultimately, is what I have the biggest problem with.

Let me go through this from the start. Pretty much all the reasons I love Cassandra Pentaghast are also the reasons she pings my queerdar on a big scale.

Short hair: check. Stern warrior type: check. Fights for what she believes in no matter what it takes, no matter who is against her: check. Cheekbones you could slice vegetables with. Okay, so maybe that last bit isn't a reason for pinging the queerdar, but I really do like that about her.

So yeah, Cassandra Pentaghast feels like a queer character to me. And yet for some reason Bioware made the decision to make her straight. I don't actually know the answer. I've seen various fans complaining that the decision was made to go against stereotypes of the butch queer ladies, to do something different. I'm kinda fed up of hearing that excuse though. As a butch queer lady myself I want to know where all these stereotypically butch queer ladies are in media because I want to put this media in my face. Literally the only butch character I can think of off the top of my head is Big Boo from Orange is the New Black.

Cassandra is a lot like me in many ways---I too am angry, have short hair and want to put everyone I meet through a wall---and that's why I desperately wanted her to be like me in the queer sense too. I want people like me in the media I consume so I know I belong. My story doesn't get told, and it's getting kind of old.

And I guess it's complicated in the case of the Dragon Age universe, because it does so well elsewhere. But it has always been a mixed bag; for every good thing Bioware do with their characters and their world there seems to be at least one way in which massively fuck things up.

Inquisition is a game that gives us the first canonical lesbian (Sera) and a gay man of colour who's sexuality is part of his story but not the sole focus (Dorian). It also gives us two characters on the bi/pansexual end of the scale, including a bisexual woman of colour (Jospehine). I really don't want to take that away from the developers, because they have done some good things (there are of course issues with all of the characters I've referenced, particularly Sera, but that's a topic for another rant) but I kind of feel they could have done better. We could have had more. And not only that, the game itself made me believe we were going to to get more.

See, the thing about Inquisition is it sort of tricks you into thinking your lady Inquisitor can romance Cassandra.

Early in the game you get the option to flirt with most of the characters. I say most of them, because certain options seem to be locked off, depending on the preference of the character you're flirting with. For example, I never saw the option to flirt with Blackwall when playing a male Inquisitor, and since I've never played a lady elf I've never seen the option to flirt with Solas either. Other characters can be flirted with regardless of the Inquisitor's gender, like Cullen, but if you're playing a dude that gets shut down pretty quickly.

Dorian is an exception to this in that a female Inquisitor can flirt with him multiple times despite him being gay, but that's all wrapped up in his friendship quest line and I've never felt that was done badly. And most of my lady Inquisitors have gone for the "recreationally flirt with Dorian even though you know it's not going anywhere because it's fun" option. Mostly because I love Dorian and he's a great flirt.

Cassandra on the other hand...

If you flirt with Cassandra as a female Inquisitor it increases her approval of you, just like with the male Inquisitor. There's one point where she disapproves of your flirting but she disapproves regardless of the Inquisitor's gender, so I sort of discarded it. You can keep on flirting and she will keep on approving. For all intents and purposes it looks exactly like romancing Cassandra as a male Inquisitor. You do her friendship quest line, getting Varric to write a romance novel for her and she super duper approves.

And then you get The Cutscene.

Yeah, it one hundred percent requires capital letters there.

The Cutscene is where Cassandra tells a female Inquisitor she's not interested. That there can never be a romance between the two of them because she is the Herald of Andraste, Cassandra's leader, and the real kicker, a woman.

I am so, so glad I knew about this scene before I started playing because oh my god, getting shot down by Cassandra like that would have made me scream.

Here's the thing though; not only does the first half of the game make you think Cassandra can be romanced regardless of the Inuisitor's gender, but apart from that one line from Cassandra, that Cutscene is basically identical to the one you get with a male Inquisitor who can romance her. The exact same animation, the exact same conversation options. The only difference is that Cassandra shuts you down completely when you're playing a woman, and there's no way to pick things back up.

And that, quite frankly, is bullshit.

Because here's the thing; no one else gets a cutscene to shut down the Inquisitor's attempts at romance. (Here, again Dorian is something of an exception, but that cutscene merely offers addressing the failed romance as a conversation option, it isn't the sole purpose of the cutscene.) In almost every other case, if the romance is incompatible then either there is no option to flirt or it is shut down immediately, in a conversation, not a cutscene.

Cassandra is the only one who gets an entire cutscene specifically for letting the Inquisitor down.

And that bugs me. Because what that says to me is that the developers had every intention of making Cassandra bisexual. Indeed, it looks to me that they got a good deal of the way down the development for that only to bottle it. Perhaps they realised that if Cassandra was bisexual too then there wouldn't be any straight women in the game and dudes might throw a hissy fit. Maybe they really were concerned about pandering to stereotypes. I don't know.

What I do know is that I feel cheated. I feel cheated because the most me character I've ever seen in videogames turned out not to be like me in one very particular way. The same way so many characters that look like me end up not being. I'm used to the disappointment by now, but with Cassandra Pentaghast it stings because the game seems to put so much effort into making you believe she's bisexual.

It feels like I've been queer-baited, and that's never a fun feeling.

I've coped with the sting of that disappointment the same way a lot of other queer women in the fandom have; through fanfic. We seem to have universally decided that the Cutscene means Cassandra is a closeted bisexual with a whole heap of internalised biphobia and homophobia and writing stories based on that. It eases the sting a little, but not enough.

Because reading stories about Cassandra and femquisitor being cute and fluffy and getting married and stuff helps, but it's not the same as having a romance in the main game. I feel cheated, like I have to settle for the what the fandom is doing (which is great, don't get me wrong) but I feel like there could have been more. Like there should have been a canon romance there.

And it doesn't help that Bioware has form for this sort of thing. Here I'm talking about the... decisions they made regarding Jack's bisexuality in Mass Effect. That is definitely for another rant though. But the fact that they've pulled shit like this before hurts, especially when they're one of the best videogame companies when it comes to queer representation. It just shows how far we have to go.

Maybe it would sting less if they hadn't taken the Universal Bisexuality approach in Dragon Age 2. I don't know. Because as important as it is to me to have the first canonical lesbian and gay man in the franchise, it feels like a step back for us bisexuals. Another one to add to the pile I guess.

Looking forward to Dragon Age 4, which while not formally announced yet is a terribly kept open secret, I want to see them do better. If Cassandra is a featured character I'd love to see her actually struggle with her sexuality and admit she was wrong. That would go a long way towards easing the hurt.

Dragon Age 4 needs to build on what the franchise has done so far. It needs to have canon queer characters of multiple persuasions. And if I can't romance Cassandra then for the love of the Maker give me a "stereotypical" butch queer woman to romance. Someone who looks like me. Someone who can reassure me that I'm desirable and worth loving.

Although to be honest, as long as DA4 makes Krem a romance option I'm not too picky. That one is non-negotiable.