Dragon Age writer defends Baldur's Gate 3's least favorite companion: "Fandom has always treated male characters with more forgiveness"

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David Gaider steps up to defend Lae'zel

Baldur's Gate 3
(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Dragon Age writer David Gaider says female characters receiving more criticism than their male counterparts is "very much a Thing" in games. 

On August 18, Gaider - who is mainly known as the writer of BioWare's Dragon Age series and Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical - responded to a tweet about Baldur's Gate 3, explaining that, as was the case with Dragon Age, male characters tend to get more forgiveness than female characters do from their fans. 

The exchange started when one Twitter user shared screenshots of Baldur's Gate 3's Lae'zel, along with the caption: "Lae'zel is the RPG party member equivalent of 'the show gets really good after season 4'". This prompted another user to quote retweet the post and add: "I'm confident if Lae was a guy people would be swooning about him being so edgy and such a bad boy," before then making reference to Baldur's Gate 3's Astarion.

This is where Gaider comes in. The RPG writer took from their own experience before quote tweeting that final tweet and adding: "Can confirm. The Dragon Age fandom consistently gave WAY more latitude and forgiveness to male characters as opposed to female characters, in every game. It is very much a Thing."

Gaider stuck around to comment further on his take. When one follower suggested that "the audience demographic was different back in 2009", Gaider explained, "it was the same way for [Dragon Age 2] and [Dragon Age Inquisition], not just [Dragon Age: Origins]. Fandom has always treated male characters with more forgiveness - full stop."

This isn't the first time Gaider has been vocal about Baldur's Gate 3. Just before the release of the developer's latest game, Stray Gods, Gaider took to Twitter and shared a thread reflecting on the early stages of the game's development. "If [Baldur's Gate 3] shows us anything, it's that it's worth doing whatever you're doing with your whole ass," Gaider's tweet read, "lean into it. Take those risks. Why we make games is why we play them, right?" 

You can find out exactly what we thought of both games with our Baldur's Gate 3 review and Stray Gods: A Roleplaying Musical review. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.