Dragon Age 2 is known as an outlier in the series for a number of reasons from being unable to choose a race other than human to taking place in just one city. The game was split into three acts that spanned about nine years in Thedas, maps were constantly recycled, and every companion was bisexual. All these traits made Dragon Age 2 unique. However, there was another outlier that stood out to fans, and it was a certain character based on a celebrity, Tallis.
Tallis the qunari elf is a companion in the Mark of the Assassin DLC and is an original character written and acted by actress, writer, and producer Felicia Day. She was created as the protagonist of Day's web series, Dragon Age: Redemption. The series was made in 2011 with six episodes, and DLC of Tallis came out in the same year. Fitting in with much of Dragon Age 2's quirks, Tallis was a strange character with a stranger conception story.
Felicia Day And Dragon Age: Redemption
Day, being a big Dragon Age fan, both wrote and starred in Dragon Age: Redemption as Tallis. According to Day's blog, her agent helped organize her and EA/Bioware to work together. They got other famous names on the project such as Doug Jones, Adam Rayner, Greg Aronowitz, and Peter Winther. The series followed Tallis in her search to apprehend a loose Saarebas. In the end, she kills the Saarebas which is against the Qun's wishes. It is hinted that she may defect, but instead, she somehow regains her rank anyway and rejoins the Qun.
The web series had a low budget and a majority of Dragon Age fans did not watch it, and the series currently has a six out of 10 on IMDb. Negative reviews have written that the web series felt like fan fiction with cliche after cliche, with it seeming more like watching Day LARPing with friends than seeing a piece of official Dragon Age content. The more positive reviews wrote that the series did a lot with a tiny budget, and while it was not very good, it also was not terrible. However, Day's involvement in Dragon Age did not end with the web series. Her character, Tallis, was then in Dragon Age 2 DLC, and it was an oddity.
Tallis In The Dragon Age Games
Tallis comes into Dragon Age 2 and teams up with Hawke to steal a jewel from an Orlesian Duke. She is later revealed to be a qunari agent who is actually there to stop a Tal-Vashoth from selling qunari secrets to Orlais. She succeeds in protecting the qunari secrets. There are mentions of Tallis in Dragon Age: Inquisition, but it is unknown whether it is the same Tallis since the name is also a title.
Many more Dragon Age fans played this DLC than watched Day's web series, and Tallis was not a popular character on a number of levels. Foremost, Tallis' writing rubbed fans the wrong way. Her positive feelings on the Qun are heavily explored in Mark of the Assassin and are quite hypocritical. While her character is a goofball that loved freedom and supports the Qun, she always disobeys them, and fans were already well aware that the Qun is all about purpose over freedom. It is hard to justify Tallis' actions in Mark of the Assassin, as the secrets she stole from Orlais were the names of qunari sleeper agents, the very kind of spies that prepare for invasions by settling into enemy communities.
Gamers that watched the web series and played Mark of the Assassin also had some issues with Tallis' hypocrisy. While she steals from a struggling Dalish camp in the web series, she criticizes Hawke for stealing from the dead. She kills indiscriminately in the web series but then becomes preachy about not killing people in the DLC.
The options on how to treat Tallis' character were also severely limited in Mark of the Assassin. It seemed that BioWare expected fans to love Tallis, as there were very few options to disagree with her and a lot of options to agree and flirt with her. No matter what players choose to do or say, she also will still succeed in taking the qunari secrets, which made fans feel like the story was linear and not an RPG.
Tallis' Legacy
On fan forums and social media, the general conclusion to Tallis is that she was a strange moment in Dragon Age when a celebrity's fan fiction became canon. Players that were not familiar with Day sensed something out of place with the character and those that were familiar with Day felt more like Tallis was just Day rather than a fleshed-out Dragon Age character. Unfortunately, Day herself got fan hate for her part in Tallis.
With the qunari potentially invading more of Thedas in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, it does come into question whether Tallis will make an appearance or be mentioned. Since her name is also a qunari title, it may be hard to tell if she is just mentioned. It could be a chance for the character to settle her issues and make peace with some fans. There is also the possibility that BioWare realized Tallis was not well-liked and decided to drop her character from any future content.
Perhaps the oddest thing about Tallis is that she is a stand-alone celebrity insert in a big series. Characters are not built to look like their voice actors or have any commonalities with any real people. The most inspiration characters get is from other fantasy characters like Vivienne with Maleficent, so Tallis is one more thing on the list that makes Dragon Age 2 so quirky.
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is in development.