411 Book Review: Dragon Age - The Stolen Throne
Posted by Armando Rodriguez on 04.08.2009
Armando Rodriguez checks out the latest book by David Gaider.
Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne is a story that serves as a prequel to Bioware’s upcoming RPG Dragon Age: Origins. It was written by David Gaider, the lead writer for the game itself. While The Stolen Throne does a good job of introducing us to the world of Dragon Age, just how much of it has to do with the game is difficult to judge, since the game is several months away. As it is, the book is really well done, with a tale of revenge at the center and plenty of fantastic locations and battles to make it feel action packed.
The story’s villain is King Mehgren. Before the book properly begins, we are told that the Orlesians invaded the Fereldans, displacing the rightful king and replacing him with Mehgren. Mehgren is vile and cruel, choosing to choke the Fereldan population, in an attempt to control them with fear, instead of trying to be a nice King and earning their love and respect. He replaced those Fereldan nobles that opposed him with Orlesians, stealing the lands of Fereldans. Although the legit King of the Fereldans is dead, his daughter becomes The Rebel Queen, leading a rag-tag army of rebels and displaced nobles into battle against the “Orlesian dog”. This is how our story begins, in the dark depths of a forest where The Rebel Queen was to meet with a group of Fereldan nobles who have had enough of the Orlesian King and where supposed to pledge their alliance. This was all a setup that ends with the death of The Rebel Queen and the introduction of her young, somewhat inept son, Prince Maric, who now is the legit King of the Fereldans.
Maric barely escapes the forest and is lucky enough to end up meeting Loghaim, an outlaw from a nearby camp. Loghaim takes Maric to his camp and heals him. Maric is fearful of everyone, so he hides his true identity. As a result, the camp is attacked by Maric’s pursuers. Maric reveals his true identity, which leads to Loghaim wanting to kill him in order to prevent the attack. However, the leader of the camp, Loghaim’s father, had worked under Maric’s grandfather, the legit King, and is loyal to him. He instructs Loghaim to protect Maric and take him as far away as he can. Loghaim’s father dies in Maric’s name, stalling his pursuers.
This is how Maric and Loghaim, reluctantly, become partners and the centerpiece of the story. Even when he hates Maric at first, Loghaim finds it hard to part ways with the Prince, since he is so good natured and also incapable of taking care of himself. Later on they meet with the remnants of the Rebel Army, lead by Arl Rendorn and her daughter, Rowan, who is betrothed to Maric. We are also introduced to Severan, a wizard who is the right hand man for the evil King Mehgren. Severan hires a bard named Katriel with the object of killing Maric. As it turns out, Maric falls in love with Katriel and she starts developing feelings for him. The love story complicates when Loghaim starts having feelings for Rowan.
Without giving too much of the story away, Katriel is responsible for the death of most of the rebel army, including the Arl of Rendorn. However, before the betrayal can be complete, she realizes she loves Maric and saves him, Loghaim and Rowan from certain doom. She becomes a guide for them as they trek through the underground and meet the evil darkspawn, creatures infested with some sort of plague that spreads wherever they go. These creatures where sealed underground long ago, but it seems that because of the Prince’s desperate trek underground, they are freed into the world. Or so I can tell from the early previews of the video game.
However this is a tale of sacrifice. It clearly shows that there are two things that Kings can do: what they WANT to do and what they NEED to do. This, to me, is the greatest message of the story. Maric loves Katriel, but is enraged when he finds out about her betrayal and ends up killing her. He never forgives himself for that. Loghaim and Rowan love each other, but since Rowan is betrothed to Maric, they sacrifice their love for the goodwill of the kingdom. Thus, Maric, when the war ends and the impostor King is dead, marries Rowan and they become King and Queen. Deep down inside, Maric still loves Katriel and his friendship with Loghaim sours. As a matter of fact, it is stated that after the war ended, Loghaim and Maric barely saw each other again.
I left plenty of stories out of my review for you to find out. The book gives us a great insight into the locations and characters that we might meet in the game and it is my duty to review the book, not retell everything that happened. There are several epic battles for readers to enjoy, including Maric’s revenge on Severan for putting Katriel in his path. Needless to say, it is a satisfying conclusion.
However, the book is not without fault. I found that some of the characters seem to be clichés of other stories. Maric’s “Good-natured, trusting and somewhat inept” character reminded me of how Frodo begins his journey in Lord of the Rings. Loghaim also shares similarities to Aragorn: both of them are rangers, both of them are burly, somewhat silent, characters and both of them don’t trust the story’s hero at first. But these aspects do not detract from the great story and the wonders of the world Bioware has created. Not only is the book a good read, it also made me very interested in the video game that will follow it. It has been clearly influenced by Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons, but what great fantasy world hasn’t?
Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne is a story that serves as a prequel to Bioware’s upcoming RPG Dragon Age: Origins. It was written by David Gaider, the lead writer for the game itself. While The Stolen Throne does a good job of introducing us to the world of Dragon Age, just how much of it has to do with the game is difficult to judge, since the game is several months away. As it is, the book is really well done, with a tale of revenge at the center and plenty of fantastic locations and battles to make it feel action packed.
