Dragon Age has phenomenal characters. For all the fantastic world building, complex narratives, and engaging level design, it’s the characters that make the game. That’s why Dragon Age 2, and the brilliantly flawed Kirkwall, still sparkles despite the rushed development and recycled assets. The characters, and the stories they have to tell, can’t be held back by repeated dungeons. Of all Dragon Age’s sprawling cast though, it’s Isabela Rivaini that shines brightest.

Many characters challenge Isabela for pole position, but she dispatches them all with (wicked) grace. She’s a similar archetype to the lothario Zevran, whose voice actor promises us he'll play Dragon Age eventually having picked it up during a Steam sale a year ago. She’s as charming as Varric, as dark as Morrigan, as funny as Sera, as brash as Iron Bull, and as sexually charged as Dorian after a month at sea with no privacy. She combines the best tropes of the rest of the cast and adds a piratical flavour of her own into the stew.

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What makes Dragon Age’s cast so special is that everyone has their favourite. Because BioWare splits character writing up between the staff, each one gets a much higher level of attention paid to them; it’s not one person writing eight different characters and naturally coming to favour one or two of them - each character is given the spotlight. I can’t imagine there are too many Sebastian fans out there, and Blackwall is near the bottom of the pile because all of his interesting stuff comes after 30 hours of gruff muttering, but in general, each character is equally beloved. For Dragon Age Week, I want to focus on why Isabela Rivaini will always be my favourite.

Isabela and Hawke covered in blood

Isabela first appears in Dragon Age: Origins, though her design and personality seem to be a work in progress compared to the ‘what if Anne Bonney had an OnlyFans’ version we see in Dragon Age 2. You can only interact with Isabela briefly in a single side quest, and even then, that’s only if you bring Zevran along with you. Play your cards right and you can even sleep with her then and there, but most players get nothing more than a nod from her.

She’s an odd character to bring back, but clearly there was a lot of discussion of the character behind the scenes that understood her potential. Having her return in Dragon Age 2 is genius.

She’s far more fleshed out in the sequel, and arrives with one of the best introductions in gaming - even better than Grunt in Dragon Age’s space faring cousin, Mass Effect, who’s introduction is so good he gets two of them. While her introduction sets a high bar, every subsequent interaction with Isabela manages to clear it.

Isabela with crew

For people who haven't played Dragon Age 2, Isabela can be a surprisingly hard sell. A casual search for her best lines will return cringey exchanges like "Someone needs a good spanking!", "If we kill them, we get their stuff!", and of course, "I like big boats and I cannot lie." Isabela is not afraid to be silly. Far too many of Dragon Age's cast, fantastic though they are, are keenly aware of their own charisma. Morrigan, Fenris, and Zevran all keep their guard up too much to ever say something as ridiculous as threatening the darkspawn with a good spanking. Dorian, like Isabela, is willing to play the fool, but he goes too far in the opposite direction - much of Dorian's foolishness is a mask designed to hide his inner turmoil. With Isabela, what you see is what you get.

While the quips she barks out in combat are a little over the top, her party banter offers a much better depiction of her sharp wit and acid tongue. She goes to great lengths to explain to naive Merrill why sailors need alone time at sea to release pent-up aggression, when she asks Fenris about his fisting skills, or when she offers Bethany a lend of her erotic novels. She also has no less than 16 ways to ask Aveline how good Donnic is in bed - one of which is "did he explore your Deep Roads?" - and when Aveline eventually frustratedly replies that Donnic is "proficient," Isabela scolds her for being far too personal.

Isabela in the Hanged Man.

Isabela takes nothing seriously. Most of the other characters have some jokes thrown in there - Dragon Age is a Joss Whedon sort of 'make them cry but for god's sake tell a joke' kind of story anyway - but none commit to the bit as hard as Isabela does. That's before you mention her unique influence on the story. The lurking Qunari drive the tension in the game, and it's Isabela's theft of their precious tome that eventually causes this to spill over into a one-on-one clash between Hawke and the Arishok. The trailers make this out to be an epic battle, when in reality players just cheese it by running around in a silly pattern, but still - Dragon Age 2 places Isabela at the heart of it.

In some ways, Isabela's popularity is her downfall. There are multiple ways this book theft escapade can go, but since we all love Isabela and getting her approval is relatively simple, for most players she just returns with it as soon as she considers how it might place Hawke in danger. Arguably the other routes are more interesting to explore, but seeing them means avoiding Isabela's good graces, and who wants to do that? BioWare has previous here, making you play Mass Effect 2 wrong in order to see the best of Legion.

Isabela is one of Dragon Age's most fascinating characters, but I'm not sure how much I want her back. She feels like a summer fling, intoxicating and exciting and electric, but short-lived. A firework of a love affair. Dragon Age has a lot of characters whose stories still feel untold, and I wouldn't say no to Isabela in Dragon Age 4, but it feels like she's best off sailing the seas, exploring the world. However big and sprawling Dragon Age 4 is, it might be too small to contain Isabela Rivaini.

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