In Dragon Age 2 (DA2) there’s a character called Anders. Anders is a mage who has been possessed by a spirit of justice. As the story of the game progresses Anders changes in his attitude and becomes more aggressive in his desire for justice.

Anders just wants what’s right and fair for the mages, he wants to stop the abuse from the templars. If you talk to him enough in the game he seems quite likeable as a character but there’s an internal conflict that eventually becomes incredibly important.

The plot of the game revolves around the idea that mages are dangerous and need to be controlled by the templars who just end up being oppressive prison guards. Basically a story about racism. The lack of freedom causes a mage revolt that climaxes in an act of terrorism done by Anders who believed this would achieve equality and justice.

The character is well written and it expresses well how a concept like justice can be corrupted by interpretation of what justice is. Eventually Anders’ spirit of justice becomes a spirit of vengeance.

The Dragon Age series does sometimes take inspiration from existing media and the day before I started playing DA2 I watched Ghost Rider Spirit Of Vengeance. Anders character was basically the Ghost Rider from this film and I wrote about Ghost Rider recently, I stated that a video game did the story better and DA2’s Anders was it.

If you’re a gamer I’d definitely recommend all the Dragon Age games for their stories which are easily relatable to real attitudes that make the characters more believable.

Both Ghost Rider Spirit Of Vengeance and Dragon Age 2 came out in 2011 although the Marvel comics have used Ghost Rider as a character for much longer.