Dragon Age: Origins’ Niall Embodies A Forgotten Deadly Sin
How many deadly sins are there? I bet you said seven. You’re wrong. If you read the title and tried to be a smartarse and said eight, you’re also wrong. There are nine deadly sins, or at least there used to be. Two have been forgotten over time, or were deemed too similar to others and were simply consumed by the bigger sins.
The first forgotten sin is vainglory. Meaning unjustified boasting, you can see where the overlap with pride begins, albeit with an added bonus of plain old lies. It was Pope Gregory who officially folded the two together in the sixth or seventh century, and it has been forgotten so hard that we don’t even use it as a word any more, let alone a deadly sin. The second, which also fell at the hands of Pope Gregory back in the day, is acedia. Acedia is often translated as ‘apathetic listlessness’, which is a mood we can all relate to. It’s when the world is getting you down, it’s the behaviour you exhibit when you’re feeling down and melancholic. Some monks translate it as spiritual detachment, which hits a bit close to home, but old Greg (not that one) thought it was too similar to sloth.
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It’s this sense of acedia that Niall in Dragon Age: Origins embodies. Wait, you don’t remember Niall? You need me to explain who he is, too? Fine. Niall is the pessimistic mage you encounter when the Sloth Demon puts you to sleep. It's one of the best dungeons in the game, but not for poor Niall. He’s been trapped in the dream world for longer than he can remember, the spirit slowly eating his soul to feed the facade. Niall is a piteous man, resigned to his fate to remain in the Sloth domain forever, lacking the motivation to break free. You have more motivation than
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