Uncompacting Shale

I would like to start this post with two notes. This will likely be my last Dragon Age: Origins post here, though the fact that it has wrung so many out of me here and in other places speaks to how I feel about it. I thank you for your indulging my obsession. Also, this post will contain spoilers for both the game and the DLC pack The Stone Prisoner, so if that concerns you, I ask you to avert your eyes, bookmark it until you have played it, and then join back in the discussion.

Shale is a companion that was slated to be in the original game, but due to the fact that the character model was originally much larger, this inclusion posed many problems, such as fitting through doors and blocking camera angles–hence why Shale can only be found in The Stone Prisoner DLC (the team was allowed extra time through delays to change the character model to better fit the game). Which is a shame, because Shale, like many of the other companions, is really rather compelling, though one could easily write this character off as another of BioWare’s non-human ‘thinks humans are squishy slabs of meat’ companions. Most the companions in this game can belie their initial impressions though (dunno about that Oghren–but I didn’t have him in my party much).

For instance, this golem starts off by referring to the Warden as it, rather than by ‘he’ or ‘she,’ which starts the examination of how gender is handled for this character. As you will note, I have avoided gendered pronouns and the impersonal it when referring to Shale, and here is where I will provide a cut to fly away from spoiler-avoiding eyes.

At the end of Shale’s personal quest, an interaction occurs, and I will record my own personal interaction:

Warden: So… you’re female? I had no idea.

Shale: I did not think it needed to be said. It has never told me what gender it is, has it?

Warden: I am male.

Shale: Good for it. I am sure that to other creatures as soft and weak as itself, that would be perfectly obvious. The truth is that whatever gender I was is irrelevant now. I am a golem. I have no gender. It will not become an issue?

Warden: No! No, not at all.

Shale: Good. Let us leave it at that. Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

The discussion of gender here is wrapped up in humor, playing on the expectation of gender, and poking fun at the ignorance of the Warden. A touch I found particularly brilliant was pointing out that the Warden assumes his gender is apparent to everyone based on his appearance, which is faulty logic.  At first, it may seem as if Shale has eschewed gender, as she has her sex, but things become more complicated, particularly as the story reaches its climax.

Shale speaking with my human mage, Aeazel. Opting for the emerald forest style this season.

A common complaint of mine comes when media genders robots, or other non-sexed beings, who have no particular sex (Chrono Trigger egregiously does this with a pink frame and bow on Atropos, Robo’s significant other, which is when I first realized I was supposed to read Robo as male). Up until this point in the story of Dragon Age: Origins there has been little reference to the gender of Shale, with some people here and there taking a stab at pronouns, but nothing definitely set.

If you end up at the celebration ceremony at the end, you can find out that Shale, or Shayle as her name once was, impressed with your valor in fighting the Archdemon, has decided to forsake her golem-body in favor of becoming a dwarf once again. She references that if you ever discover a dwarf cowering in fear of being squished, to be sure that you have found her again.

What is not mentioned again is that she will be a female dwarf, just a dwarf.  Considering her bloodlust and fervor for battle paired with a love for shiny crystals (even worrying if they make her look a bit too wide), Shale is an example of a character who is not pigeon-holed into a gendered role, but is constructed first as a character with her own motivations. Novel thought, that.

A point that my friend Kateri and I discussed is that Shale also serves as a symbol for transition. To her it is no revelation that she is female; this is a fact like so many others–like, say, her hate of birds. Her gender does not conflict with her body, because it holds no sex, so it never seems a topic of discussion for her, as she reveals to the Warden. Therefore, seeking to return back to her body with the help of the Tevinter mages and Wynne’s guidance at the post-game ceremony is working to align her gender back with a body that has sexual attributes to it (I imagine she’d return to a female body). What never changes is her own gender, which is a personal issue, not one to be shared with the world at large.

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