The opening few hours of Dragon Age: The Veilguard entice previous gamers and get new ones up to the mark with the intelligent use of 1 character: Varric Tethras, scribe of heroes. As a companion within the earlier two video games, he’s a well-known face, and because the man who wrote the (fictional) ebook, he can inform you firsthand all in regards to the occasions of Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition.
However there’s one factor Varric won’t ever speak about: Why he calls his crossbow Bianca. Dragon Age followers did finally get a proof — however to be trustworthy, it’s solely ever raised extra questions.
[Ed. note: This piece contains some spoilers for the opening of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.]
Bianca, Varric’s steampunk-ass repeating crossbow, doesn’t function a lot in Veilguard’s opening hours. At June’s Summer time Sport Fest, BioWare’s gameplay preview revealed that Bianca takes a mighty blow from Solas’ magic, shattering into items. Perhaps Varric can put it again collectively once more, possibly he can’t — you’ll must play the sport to search out out. But when it’s the finish of Bianca, it’s an epic dying for the one inanimate object in Dragon Age canon worthy of character standing.
Varric and Bianca are collectively launched in Dragon Age 2 when a pickpocket lifts your player-character’s coin purse and Varric fires a single bolt so precisely that it pins the fleeing thief to a wall by his clothes. Varric talks to Bianca as if it have been alive and attractive for him (it’s value clarifying that it’s not alive, contemplating this can be a fantasy setting) — half his fight barks are issues like “Bianca, child, introduce your self!” or “Bianca, you minx! That was lovely!” — and whereas he positively likes to showboat, he’s not incorrect to worth it as a weapon.
In the principle story of Dragon Age 2, you study that Bianca is singular — there’s no different crossbow on the planet that fires robotically, by no means thoughts so shortly and powerfully. It’s the proper weapon for a self-described lazy service provider prince and part-time novelist. What you by no means study, nonetheless, is the place Bianca got here from or whether or not it’s named after an individual named Bianca. As Varric describes it in Dragon Age: Inquisition, it’s the one story he’ll by no means inform.
Dragon Age 2’s Legacy DLC has the sport’s first “clarification” for Bianca’s origin: It was created by Gerav, a dwarven engineer and previous mafia contact of Varric’s — which Varric explains after he’s compelled to kill Gerav, who’d been pushed mad by darkspawn an infection. You’ll be aware, nonetheless, that this doesn’t clarify why he calls Bianca “Bianca,” and followers would finally discover out that this was a lie of omission, simple to make as a result of Gerav may now not converse for himself.
Bianca’s namesake could be revealed for the primary time within the tie-in comedian Dragon Age: Till We Sleep, and finally Dragon Age: Inquisition. The true Bianca — I imply, the human Bianca — no, wait… The residing Bianca was a dwarven smith and Varric’s secret, long-distance real love; they might by no means be collectively due to dwarven mafia politics and her organized marriage. Gerav created Varric’s crossbow, however he by no means succeeded in getting it to work. It wasn’t till Varric introduced it to his intelligent lover that Bianca (the dwarf) was capable of make Bianca (the crossbow) into the fearsome weapon he wields within the video games.
Having executed that, nonetheless, Varric and Bianca realized they needed to maintain the origins of the crossbow secret, lest she be hunted down and compelled to mass manufacture it for the scariest bidder. And as of the tip of Dragon Age: Inquisition, Bianca (the dwarf) remains to be alive, and her secret remains to be secure. Solely Varric’s closest buddies and some members of the Inquisitor’s inside circle know the reality.
This a part of the story is sensible — Bianca the crossbow is actually a fantasy machine gun. “A crossbow that fires this far and this shortly with so little coaching? Each battle could be a bloodbath,” Varric tells Solas in Inquisition.
However the remainder of the story, if I’ll say in order Polygon’s foremost Varric Tethras fan, comes aside like tissue paper. If Varric and Bianca made a pact to maintain this crossbow from being extensively manufactured, then why didn’t they simply destroy it? Why is Varric swaggering round Kirkwall pinning muggers to partitions in broad daylight? In the event that they need to maintain it a secret that Bianca created this crossbow, then why did Varric title it after her? Why is he consistently calling the crossbow Bianca, loudly, in the midst of each combat?
Video video games are enormous tasks, produced from the work of lots of of creatives, and that’s earlier than you consider sequels, DLC, and tie-in comics. You may’t count on a piece of world-building like Dragon Age, which is over 15 years previous and produced from many, many fingers, to not have some plot holes. And as a dyed-in-the-wool superhero fan, I do know one of the best ways to answer plot holes: Simply chill out and go along with them.
All the things we find out about Varric says that he’s a eager choose of humanity and a canny schemer with a coronary heart of gold, who’s keen to sacrifice his personal time and well-being to guard these closest to him. The factor that tickles me, as a Dragon Age fan, is that calling his crossbow Bianca says that he’s additionally a dumb fool who can’t shut up in regards to the accomplishments of his family members. And I take pleasure in believing that, as a result of it’s very endearing.
