Within the past fifty years, video games have taken a prominent role in popular culture. Video games provided a way to experience a story in a different way than a book would. Video games can use different genres to craft their stories, and, like all art, video games can sometimes give poignant comments on reality. “Those familiar with the ontological debates around what kind of medium video games might be, what they offer that is distinct from other mediums, and what their relationship is to other digital texts are likely familiar with the suggestion that a defining aspect of video games is their ability to create a more intense emotional response than other media due to their representational and interactive qualities” (Heineman 194). Because…show more content… Thedas is the name of the continent in the southern hemisphere of the world. There are two empires that dominate Thedas: Orlais which is loosely based on France and Fereldan which is loosely based on Germany. Each game in the series follows a different protagonist through the history of the “Dragon Age,” which is named as such because of the sudden reappearance of dragons after many years of being thought extinct. Dragon Age: Inquisition follows a protagonist who will become known as the Inquisitor, the leader of the Inquisition itself. The Inquisition is an organized group which first formed in the year -100 Ancient long before the Dragon Age in order to defend Thedas from “the dangers of magic and heretics” (Dragon Age Wiki). The second formation of the Inquisition, which our protagonist takes leadership of, happens because of a catastrophic event came to be known as the Breach. The Breach is, as a knowledgeable companion, Solas the elf mage, puts it, “a tear in the veil between this world and the Fade,” (Dragon Age Wiki) and it is the Inquisitor’s job to use the mysterious mark that appeared on their hand when the Breach happened to close all the tears between reality and the…show more content… Lord Dunsany’s King of Elfland’s Daughter practically revolves around the divide between Erl (reality) and Elfland. Usually, the two realms are analogous with reality and the imagination. The imagination’s realm is a magical place where anything can happen, and its rules typically function differently from those of reality. In King of Elfland’s Daughter, Elfland is described as a place where there are “colours more deep than are in our fields, and the very air there glows with so deep a lucency that all things seen there have something of the look of our trees and flowers of June reflected in water” (Dunsany 14). Elfland manifests the very nature of the imagination: pure and unbound to the point that no one can truly fully describe it well. The Fade, on the other hand, is a place associated with dreams, but those dreams can become nightmares easily. The spirits that reside in the Fade are corrupted into demons upon crossing the barrier between the realms. This is similar to how Lirazel is able to leave Elfland, but instead of being corrupted, her perfection begins to wither away as she finally starts aging. “And [Lirazel] went to Alveric crying to be comforted, because she feared that Time in the fields we know might have power to harm that beauty that the long, long ages of Elfland had never dared to dim” (37). Reality has a tendency to keep moving on, all while being influenced by man. Beauty dims in
