Of course his stupid cliched dialogue is nothing compared to his biggest problem: he’s terrible. He literally fails in everything he ever does.

In order for a villain to feel like a threat, they have to at least succeed once. They have to feel like an actual obstacle to the protagonist’s progress, otherwise they’re just some minor character who doesn’t serve the story.

I would agree but for the fact that I feel Corypheus was meant to feel ineffectual on purpose. Alexius, the Envy demon, Samson, and over other minor villain was meant to feel more a threat to us, more present than he does.

Beyond that, the real threat was never Corypheus. Corypheus was a fumbling fool who picked up an orb that was never his and did monumentally foolish things with it.

No, the threat is supposed to be felt in the epilogue. You are supposed to see how Corypheus was thwarted at every turn, not necessarily by the Inquisitor, but by the very well placed movements of a god who is actually competent and capable of his job. Not only does Corypheus fail because he leaves his army to work alone while the Inquisitor does not, but Corypheus fails because he is specifically thwarted by the manipulations and machinations of the two very real gods in the plot.

It was luck that the Inquisitor has the Anchor.

Everything else? Who figured out how to close the rifts? Who provided the Inquisitor with behind the scenes, and 100% accurate, predictions of what Corypheus will do? Who predicated the attack on Haven? Who found Skyhold? Who saved the Inquisitor’s life when they otherwise would have died? To whom did the orb belong in the first place?

And furthermore, who had the knowledge to sever Corypheus from his power base? Who gave the Inquisition the Dragon?

Corypheus is meant to be ineffectual.

You’re meant to see him fail and fall and not see a real threat because you have teamwork and because, more than that, you are supposed to see how “real” gods function.

The narrative serves to make Solas and Mythal far more threatening than Corypheus.

I believe it was intentional.

Yeah… This was a set up.  This was a test of your Inquisitor’s mettle, of Thedas’ mettle, to set up a whole new world state and close the old.  

I wonder, with the Keep, if the Inquisitor won’t be the first repeatable hero, ala Shepard, but for Dragon Age.  It would make sense with the threadbare plot we were given.  It was yet another game where we got to watch the Apostates set up the chess board.

Interesting theory re: the writers intending Corypheus to be ineffectual, but I can’t agree. If we accept that, then it invalidates the narrative conceit of the game, which is that the Inquisitor is the protagonist and Corypheus is the antagonist, and the conflict of the story is in the conflict between their two sides. The argument that the elven gods are the real antagonists of the game -- that is, that they’re the ones we should consider the real threat -- not only supposes the Inquisitor to have information they don’t have (the Inquisitor doesn’t know the truth about Solas), but also pulls the rug out from under the player in the final minutes of the game, long after it would be possible for any resolution or denouement to be reached in the narrative.

If you want an example of a bait-and-switch antagonist done well, look no further than Dragon Age 2. The game toys with the players’ expectation that the Arishok -- because he looks different,  is openly hostile to the player, and has basically occupied part of Kirkwall -- will be the Big Bad of the story, only to remove him as a threat by the end of Act 2. When he’s taken out, it becomes clear that the mage-Templar tension, spearheaded by Meredith, is and always has been the real conflict of the game. This conflict has been brewing from the very first minute of the game (since Hawke is either an apostate on the run from Templars or protecting a family member from the Templars), and on the replay, it’s obvious that Meredith was intended the ultimate Big Bad all along.

I don’t know that the same can be said about the elven gods in DAI. Maybe they’re being set up as antagonists for a future installment, but they’re not the true source of conflict for DAI, Corypheus is. And I agree with the OP, he’s a pretty terribly written villain. His actions are futile, across the board, and they do not create or build higher and higher stakes for the protagonist. There’s no real sense of threat in what he does, and he makes a lot of really eye-rollingly stupid mistakes. He even mua-ha-has at one point, I believe. I’m not a fan. (And what a shame, after how intriguing he seemed in Legacy!)

How did I not know about this??!

Apparently DA2: Legacy had some epilogue codex entries that were later cut out (probably because Legacy can be played at any point in the game and these entries could mess with the narrative).

Anyway, depending on whether you sided with Larius or Janeka, you were supposed to get a codex entry from Hawke’s personal journal titled A Strange Sighting:

Variant 1

Yesterday, I saw a man I could swear was Larius, just walking around Lowtown. I wasn’t sure at first, but that armor, that hair… he’s unmistakable.

He was talking to Samson, of all people. I can’t imagine what a Grey Warden commander and an ex-templar vagrant have in common, but they seemed intent in their discussion. When I came closer, Larius pulled Samson into a doorway—I don’t know if he saw me or not, but it seemed almost like they were avoiding me.

Variant 2

Yesterday, I saw a woman I swear was Janeka, skulking around Lowtown. She had told me that as soon as she reported what happened to Corypheus, she would go on her Calling and die in the Deep Roads, but I’m positive she was the woman I saw talking with Samson.

And that is also odd—what does a Grey Warden have in common with an ex-templar vagrant? When they saw me coming, they left. They were definitely avoiding me.

The DLC came out in 2011. They were already setting Samson up to be Cory’s lieutenant back then. Once again, how did I not know this??

Perhaps I should be afraid, facing the most powerful members of the Inquisition. 

dragon age inquisition is just a really elaborate story about a dog trying to get his ball back

Well, we got better. Sort of. 

it could also apply to his feelings about merrill as well, but: point stands.

This was one of my favorite things ever.

Can we never ever forget that Varric writes fluff? And also senselessly kills off your favourite character because he knows you feel it?

My favorite part about this is that Cassandra considers fluff to be smut.  (I think it tells us a lot of adorable things about her character that make me love her even more.)

Which makes me wonder how she’d react to actual smut.  

(Also, I always felt like Varric referring to the smut market as “cutthroat” was a nod to Isabela and her friend-fiction.)

YES. I’ve always assumed that S&S was romance (possibly bodice-ripper-y, but still), not erotica. Sex scenes, yes, as romances do have; but the focus is the romance, the love story.

I mean, in addition to Varric’s comment about it being fluff, Dorian says that it made him feel dumber—and if it was erotica I’m *positive* he would have commented on the porn-y-ness instead. It’s Dorian, after all.

tl;dr: Cass is all blushy and embarrassed about fluffy romance. Which is DARLING. And I kind of want to see her love interest send her something genuinely smutty, to see her spontaneously combust.

In that case, you may want to play the Cass romance (or watch on YouTube). Dirty poetry is the best poetry.

no gereon alexius i absolutely do not want to do the time warp again

no wonder he likes Calpernia more

Remember when Gaspard was funding scholars at the university in Val Royeaux to write scientific papers declaring elves to be animals and that having sex with an elf was bestiality

Remember when Michel was a half elf but still despises elves with everything in him to the point that he’s probably the character responsible for most of the racial slurs in The Masked Empire and quite candidly recounts murdering elves as part of his chevalier training

Remember when Celene was humiliated by Gaspard in The Game and her response was to burn down the entire elven quarter in Halamshiral and have her chevaliers line the perimeter to slaughter any elves trying to escape being burned to death

Mm but Orlais is cool right? The Game is fun right? Mmmm