Building Worlds: The Silent Sisters of Dragon Age

[Building Worlds is a series where Dan Cox examines one facet in a video game and shows you how, from that one angle, an entire society is reflected.]

“Don’t take it personally,” says Farinden. She is speaking for the dwarf standing next to her, a woman dressed in armor and ready for battle. I turn to look at this other woman, to understand why one woman would speak out for another as Farinden continues. “Hanashan’s a member of the Silent Sisters. She doesn’t talk to anyone.”

How often do you fail to notice something or even someone that not part of the quest you are on? When playing a video game, how often does the society take a backseat to who you should be talking to or killing next? Do you think about the quest text or the written story of their world? Do you stop to think about the characters you interact with for hours on end? Do you ever wonder why and how they got to where they are? If most people were to answer honestly, it would be hardly at all. Sadly, of course, this holds for me too.

When I was playing Dragon Age: Origins, I was trying to get to the next battle, the next scene. I played for the spectacle of the game and for what it could give me next. I kept looking for the next hit of adrenaline as I moved from one quest marker to another. I absorbed some story, yes, but it was in service of getting to the end of the game as soon as possible.  I was skipping dialogue frequently. I ignored side-quests. Then I read a simple, seemingly throwaway line from an NPC in some backroom.

The Silent Sisters are a group of female warriors who fight unarmed. They cut their tongues out in emulation of Astyth the Grey, the first female in the warrior caste, a previously male only section of Dwarven society.

Those above two sentences? That is all that is written about them. They are forgotten by both the fans and the critics. They have, if you can excuse the pun, been silenced. However, there is more at work here. This is more than just an organization of women warriors. They shout, if only in silence, about their world and their society.

Astyth the Grey cut her own tongue out. She was not allowed into the warrior caste of Dwarven society. She was told again and again that, since she was a woman, she was not allowed into the caste. She was not male and not born into it. She grew tired of the debates and the endless talking. Her situation demanded an action and she took it. She. Cut. Her. Own. Tongue. Out.

It takes tremendous dedication to do it. To hold your tongue and slice into it, to know that you will never again speak to another person is an act of bravery that is unparalleled. She said, in this simple action, that if she was not going to be listened to, she would no longer speak. And I have to imagine that just once, right before it was done, she screamed one last time before never speaking again.

Dwarven society listened then: the male leaders saw this defiance and they made her a Paragon of their their civilization. They made a statue of her that would remind all who saw it of her sacrifice for their people. They began to allow females to take this path, to be warriors and to fight in the Proving Grounds along with the males. Some equality was gained at the cost of one voice.

Yet, all the many years later, women in Dwarven society still perform this same mutilation to themselves. Why? It’s simple. Many of them want more than the life they are born into, the caste that they are assigned. This is how they show that more equality is still needed and the battle started by Astyth is not over for them.

You inherit your caste from your same-sex parent. That’s what the games tell us. The problem with that, of course, is that women can be “uplifted” into a higher caste by bearing a son from a male of a higher caste. In order to get a better life for yourself and possibly your daughter in Dwarven society as a woman, you must either be willing to be impregnated by a male from a higher caste or just accept your place in life. What is the alternative? Why, it’s to be a warrior and to take on silence as a way of life.

The Dragon Age games tell us that this organization is called The Silent Sisters. To me, they were the loudest characters I had seen so far. I completely stopped what I was doing when I heard them. I wanted to know more. Who are these people? Why are they silent? Why do they still, even now, remove their tongues?

I still do not know. The game would not tell me. I know that Hanashan is one of the few Silent Sisters you will ever meet. I know that after I met Farinden and Hanashan, I entered the Proving Grounds and fought various other warriors. And I know that in order to finish the area, to keep going in the game, I had to fight Hanashan. There was no time to ask about her past, her choices or how she entered the organization. It was just her and me in the arena. I killed her to continue.

It is my fault that I may never know their history and their struggles. The Silent Sisters have, indeed, been silenced and I was the one to do it. I was not paying close enough attention to the world to see what was going on before it was too late. Hanashan, through Farinden, was speaking to me and I was not listening. They were shouting at me and I did not hear them.

I will try not to make the same mistake again.