Ghost Child

We’re looking forward to the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition, coming to us soon (not nearly soon enough) from Bioware. We’re very interested to see how the character of Cole plays out, especially. Cole is an enigma—when we first meet him in Asunder, a Dragon Age novel, even he doesn’t know what he is. Is he a spirit? A demon? A ghost? Perhaps the final answer will lie more in what Cole does than in what he’s made of.

We know that he’s not human and he’s not sure that he wants to be. He does know right from wrong, and he knows that it’s wrong to hurt the innocent. With the ability to move unseen and the power to make people forget he was ever there, Cole is an excellent companion in any kind of war party. He’s also a very kind creature, willing to help simply for the sake of helping, because he can be forgotten after.

Often, when we write paranormal creatures, our characters may not know what those strange things are but those strange things certainly know themselves. That’s what makes Cole so interesting. A character who doesn’t know themselves is a window to a world of magic and paranormal laws that we might not ever see otherwise.

In our writing, it’s often tempting to err on the side of certainty, to always explain things to the reader, to never leave a matter so vague as to be questionable or confusing. But, perhaps, with a character that doesn’t know what they are something new can come to light. Maybe we can explore the unusual laws of our various universes through their self-discovery. So we’re looking forward to Cole and to what he tells us about one of our favourite game worlds—and what his story tells us about how to unveil the inner workings of the supernatural in our of writing.