Russell Crowe movie mistakes Dragon Age Inquisition symbol for the real Inquisition symbol

It is ok not to expect the Spanish Inquisition

For the longest time, people have criticized video games for deriving too much from Hollywood. It’s true. We know Solid Snake’s design from the original Metal Gear is a copy-pasted Kyle Reese from Terminator. We also know Solid Snake’s look from MGS 2 is Snake Plissken from Escape From New York. Still, the tides are changing.

Recent years have provided a library of instances of Hollywood taking a lot of inspiration from video games — even when it makes zero sense. Twitter user @DesFleurBleues discovered a scene in the new Russell Crowe film The Pope’s Exorcist that attempts to make a Spanish Inquisition reference. Brave effort, but the film ends up accidentally showing the symbol of a different, absolutely made-up Inquisition from the Dragon Age series.

Can we talk about how “The Pope’s Exorcist” (yeah that film with Russell Crowe) uses the inquisition symbol from DRAGON AGE INQUISITION as the real-world-spanish-inquisition symbol?
(which was spotted by @DesFleursBleues ) pic.twitter.com/FubVAvNdsC

— Kelgrid’s Rancid Vibes (@Kelgrid) May 11, 2023

Maybe this is the work of the actual Devil, but we should consider other possibilities. Is this what you get when you put AI in charge of things? Is this what you get when the entire research department is just one guy googling the word “Inquisition”? How come a party of heroes from a highly successful video game garnered more search engine love than an old-timey, torture-happy group? Unless the producers have forged a tie-in that EA definitely doesn’t know about, someone has messed up big time.

This is what they were looking for, in case anyone is wondering:

The film premiered in early April, so it’s a surprise it has taken so long for anyone to notice this. Maybe FleurBleues is the only video game fan who went to see The Pope’s Exorcist. Maybe the thousands of memes ended up Psyop-ing us into not suspecting anything regarding the Spanish Inquisition, but the truth is out there now.

This is a victory for players everywhere, though not for the devs of Dragon Age Inquisition. Yeah, you’re not off the hook for naming the heroes after one of the worst institutions in human history.

Tiago Manuel

Tiago is a freelancer who used to write about video games, cults, and video game cults. He now writes for Destructoid in an attempt to find himself on the winning side when the robot uprising comes.