Unpopular opinion, I am sure, but I love love love the Aveline and Anders interaction.
Oh don’t worry, it’s not for the reasons I usually like character interaction. It’s not because of hidden “aww they actually care!” moments. There are none of those. There isn’t any warmth or fuzziness to be found here. Rather, I like it because it’s a (mostly) well written, realistic conflict of principles.
I should start by saying this: Aveline was ready to be tolerant or even friendly towards Anders in their first interaction, and that sets an interesting stage for their later antagonism.
Aveline: I hear good things about you, Anders. Not what I expected.
Anders: From a mage, you mean.
Aveline: I didn’t say that.
Anders: How else would you judge me? What else am I a shining example of?
Aveline: I don’t know… other Fereldans lurking in Darktown? Mage or not.
Anders: You… have a fair point.
Here’s the way I read this:
Aveline respects that Anders is doing good for the poor. She often will give Hawke friendship points for protecting the weak and performing acts of kindness, so it makes sense that she would appreciate that Anders does this, especially since it’s had such an effect she’s heard about it from other people. She starts this interaction 100% ready to think of Anders as one of the Good mages, an exception, a credit to his kind. In fact, she even extends some goodwill to him in the form of asking for his counsel.
Why not? Well let’s look at the dialogue.
Aveline: I could use your consult Anders.
Anders: Bring it to Darktown, and I’ll get you a salve or something.
Aveline: What? No! I need to know some things about mages.
Aveline: I’m a guard. I’m the first person who has to deal with… trouble.
Anders: You want help killing people like me.
Aveline: Not every mage can be trusted.
Anders is actually pretty willing to admit that not every mage can be trusted in other contexts (see: his attitude towards blood mages and how he treats Merrill) but he isn’t really willing to play the “One of the Good Ones” here.
Aveline might be willing to give him a pass, but at this point it’s not himself personally that he cares about. He is advocating for the rights of all people like him, all mages. His goals and standards aren’t about who will be nice or helpful to him anymore, they’re focused on what’s beneficial to mages as a group.
Aveline is not standing up for mages as a whole. And while he might grant this as an acceptable flaw in someone else (Varric or Hawke), Aveline is in a direct position of power. Less so in Act 1, but by Act 2 she’s a captain of the guard which means that deciding not to prioritize the rights of mages means directly fucking at least a few innocents over.
Aveline: You’re glaring, Anders. Is there a reason, or is it one of your moods?
Anders: Your term as captain hasn’t been particularly “mage friendly.”
Aveline: I’ve only turned a handful over to the templars.
Anders: Every despot starts somewhere.
Aveline: And yet I allow an abomination to whine at me! Credit where it’s due.
By her own account, Aveline lets some mages go. She’s been willing to look the other way for Hawke plenty of times, so I am sure she has. But, unfortunately, if helping mages isn’t something she values in particular, then ultimately she’s an enemy to Anders. Because upholding the principles of lawfulness and order means she’s handed “some” over to the Templars. “Some” innocent lives who will be probably beaten, raped, killed, or made tranquil because the Gallows are really that bad.
(And to be clear, she hasn’t done this as some sort of sacrifice to ultimately help mages or some kind of People as a whole, which Anders/Justice might have grudgingly understood–it’s a sacrifice to maintain the status quo and the authority of the guard.)
This is acceptable to Aveline. Her principles value order and lawfulness. Some mages she can look the other way for, as long as they don’t threaten the order and letting them go won’t jeopardize the guard’s authority. But some she will hand over, perhaps only to make sure the guard doesn’t seem like it’s harboring apostates in a de facto Andrastian theocracy. To Aveline, who was married to a Templar and is not a mage herself, this is an acceptable sacrifice.
To Anders, who is a mage, every single one of those people handed over is a person like himself, with all the weight that he or Hawke or any of their friends has. The fact that Aveline hands over a single one of them is horrifying.
Aveline could have been helpful to Anders, the way helps Hawke or Fenris, but she supports and maintains a regime that oppresses people like him, people whom he is giving his all to fight for. So he doesn’t really give a damn about her potential ability to accept him personally as one of the exceptions.
I guess the reason I like their interaction is that, honestly, they could have gotten along. But, Aveline’s principles value order, lawfulness, and not disrupting the established authority. She’s willing to momentarily look the other way in the name of helping people, but not willing to challenge the status quo. Meanwhile Anders’ entire life has necessitated him breaking and flouting the law in order to obtain a basic freedoms, and so he’s ultimately come to the conclusion that the established order must be challenged and changed, and he’s not going to compromise that for the approval of a single person.
And like, he could have swallowed all this simply to make another potential ally to wheedle over to helping a few more mages, or at least someone who was willing to be somewhat pleasant to him, but he decided it wasn’t worth it.
In fact, he’s willing to lash out with personal insults for things Aveline did that weren’t directed at him personally at all. I’m sure she doesn’t understand why, and thinks he’s just crazy. She didn’t say anything about him, after all, so why is he acting like this?
I find this a realistic conflict. Sometimes someone reaches out in pure “tolerance” by their own standards, then the person they reached out to lashes at them, and they don’t get it. They were trying to be accepting, after all, why aren’t they being appreciated more? Aren’t they doing their best here?
And then on the other end it’s “I could get this person to respect me as an individual, but all the while they’ll be working against people like me and expecting me to reassure and validate them for it.” And in the end, well, is the conditional tolerance worth it?
It’s not personal. Not at its core. It’s ideological. But that doesn’t make the rift any less wide or less deep.
blakekathryn
yousharknotpass
janainaart
vaporwave
kaledo-art
origamiaround
