Cullen Should Only Have Been In Dragon Age: Origins
Somehow, Cullen Rutherford has made it into every Dragon Age game. From his brief appearance in Origins, he won over enough fans to get an increasingly important role as the series went on. And on a surface level, I get it. He's a cute, shy, knight in shining armour who blushes around a female Warden like a lovesick schoolboy. But then you take a step back and realize he’s a fantasy cop with the power to kill his crush in a matter of seconds. In fact, he tells you he almost had to. But he’s really torn up about it, I guess.
Cullen may seem sweet, and he might make you laugh when he runs off all flustered if your Warden teases him, but it doesn't take away from the fact that he is crushing on a woman he subjugates every day. A woman he is told he has the divine right to imprison, who is only talking to him because she has to.
Related: Dragon Age 2 Should Have Given You A Qunari Companion
He is part of an army that regularly tears children from their homes and lobotomizes anyone who doesn't fall in line. He is treated better because he is not them, and it’s a system he is complicit in. There is nothing cute about his crush on one of his inmates.
Whether or not this makes Cullen a bad person is a complicated question. He’s a result of the system he was raised in. In fact, he is meant to come across as adorable and unassuming, and even a bit of a victim in his own right. But that’s only so you can see what the Chantry's teachings do to him later on - it chews him up, and spits out a monster beyond recognition.
After you leave the Circle as a mage Warden, it’s overtaken by blood mages. This is the thing Templars have justified their whole existence around - they have to do all the horrible things they do so they can defeat
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