Inquisition’s Most Popular Romance Was Cassandra

It’s a sad day for Dragon Age fans. David Gaider, the lead writer on the series’ first three games, has announced he will cease posting daily on Bluesky about the characters he’s written. This is because Gaider has gone through every companion that he personally wrote, ending with his most recent post about Cassandra. Over the last week and a half, he’s given us behind-the-scenes insights on Fenris, Morrigan, Shale and others.

Regarding Cassandra, Gaider specifies at the end of his post that Cassandra was Dragon Age: Inquisition’s most popular romance “by a good margin,” and Dorian was the game’s least popular romance by a similar margin. This is especially interesting because Cassandra is heterosexual, only accepting the romantic pursuits of an opposite-gendered Inquisitor, meaning, in theory, her pool of available suitors was smaller.

Given the prominence of the “Solavellan” ship in the Dragon Age community, and given that a Solas-romanced Lavellan (Female Elven Inquisitor) is the default Inquisitor in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, you’d have expected this romance to be the most popular, and it may have become so in recent years. However, I always felt this particular subsection of the community was simply more vocal than the others.

The Seeker of Truth

Cassandra was originally written by Jennifer Hepler, but Hepler wasn’t fond of writing romances. The result, according to Gaider, was a character whose normal personality was incongruent with who she became when she romanced the Inquisitor. Hepler ended up leaving BioWare after targeted harassment from the usual types, and the task of writing Cassandra fell to Gaider.

Unable to reconcile Cassandra’s story with her romance, Gaider spearheaded a total rewrite of the character. One specific scene would go on to define Cassandra’s new character.

“Now I had to figure out what I was going to do with Cassandra. We couldn’t move the romance to someone else, all the other female characters were well underway, and I didn’t know the character well enough to fix her with tweaks,” Gaider begins. “That meant a re-write. I didn’t WANT to erase all that good work, but I needed to start from scratch. Yet how? A pious, self-righteous character was already a risk in terms of romantic appeal. There are only a small number of traits sort of considered universally unappealing but they’re on that list.”

Gaider explains that if you’re making a romantic option for the player, then their personality has to appeal to a significant number of the player base to make the romance worth investing time and resources in. Hepler’s version of Cassandra was pious and self-righteous, which aren’t typically attractive qualities.

“In this instance, Cassandra already being a known character helped. I came across a webcomic (by aimo, I think? I wish I could find it now) that made a joke about Cassandra reading Varric’s books. Off-hand, no basis for it, but funny. And I thought: Yes. That’s it. That’s what I’m missing,” Gaider continues. “I sat down and wrote the “fangirl” scene, just to test it out. Everyone loved it, and it served to change my image of who Cassandra was – a view of the inside, at the idealistic and awkward passion she felt, for so many things… and the Maker.”

Thus, Cassandra was transformed into this intense yet charming warrior. According to Gaider, a lot of the player base resonated with this version of the Seeker, making her the game’s most popular romance.

Dragon Age: Inquisition is the third in the popular action RPG series from BioWare, and serves as a sequel to the events of Dragon Age 2. You must travel the continent of Thedas in order to seal the ‘Breach’, a kind of portal that is sending demonic enemies into the world.