okay, so — outside of other verses and aus and etc., this is sort of the way my Canon Timeline works with regards to lena and alistair and their romance collapsing and then getting fixed and. all that. obviously this is all on my end, no force - shipping, et cetera et cetera, alistairs feel free to ignore this. but under the cut we go!
helena, throughout origins, is a very…static character. like, her opinions change — switches from lawful good to chaotic good, gets better about elves and circles and Human Rights as she’s exposed to atrocities — but it’s because at her base she’s empathetic and kind. those things don’t change, and her character doesn’t change. and her not changing is intentional on her part, i need to emphasize. she’s not changing because she’s not really being herself, in that she’s upholding herself to be this heroic knight errant archetype, and archetypes don’t change. they just do the Right Thing and carry on. when she fails to do the right thing — killing amalia comes to mind — then she’s broken and devastated because she failed to live up to that, but by and large nothing really changes.
and this creates problems Across The Board with her companions, primarily in that none of them know much or at all about the full extent of how much she’s hurting. and in relation to her romances, know much about who she is just as a person. it’s more pronounced with alistair, because honestly zevran Drags It Out Of Her because he’s perceptive in a way alistair isn’t. so she and alistair fall in love with each other, but because she’s not allowing herself to fully be a person she doesn’t upon up and shit with him, and end result she loves the idea of him more than she loves him ( she does love him, just not…in love with him as she thinks ) and he loves the archetype more than the person. they are both in love with each other, as they are, but it’s shaky. and they don’t really realize it til end game.
speaking of. end game. alistair is crowned, everyone is like wooo future queen and current king, it’s great. it’s Swell. the problem is that in the weeks and months following the end of the blight, lena sort of starts to fall apart. without the immediate danger and everything involved therein, she…begins to collapse. it’s harder to not allow herself the emotions and the breaking she’s been pushing back. and so she isolates a bit, and pulls back, and alistair doesn’t know what to do, and she realizes that oh, wait. she’s actually not in love with alistiar as she thought. because how could she be, if she was never wholly real and honest with him?
they stop sleeping together. things get awkward. they never outright talk about it, but he puts the pieces together and resents her a bit. she feels guilty about it and doesn’t know what to do, because she doesn’t know how to be honest with him any longer. she never knew how to be honest with him. it’s tense.
they…start talking again shortly before their wedding, because he puts his fucking foot down. because he’s finally like Okay Fuck This and sorta gently but firmly makes her talk about her fucking emotions and be a fucking person. and she sucks it up and does it, because she cares about him, and he deserves that.
they’re still on rocky ground by the time the wedding rolls around six months after the blight ends, but it’s a start. they start teasing again, not as lovers but as friends. they talk honestly about shit. it’s still tense and weird, but it’s better. she’s better. they start to feel more comfortable around one another, and they sleep together a few times, and she starts to think that lena as herself, not just lena as the archetype, might love him, too. and it helps alistair, too, because he gets to know his wife. his real wife, who’s good and kind and loving but also capable of being selfish and sometimes arrogant and foolish and idealistic.
then she has to go to vigil’s keep. they tease each other. “will you be staying, dear husband?” “oh, don’t tempt me, you minx.” he kisses her goodbye on the cheek, not the mouth, and that hurts a little but it’s for the best.
and in a very real way awakenings is helena’s ‘hardening’ scenario, and i don’t mean that in a bad way. awakenings is when she gets better at lying, better at being honest, too, better at learning that you have to be a person and that sometimes the story books aren’t perfect guides. the same way alistair stays himself if he’s hardened, just more confident and willing to assert himself and in some ways more selfless because he’s willing to do what has to be done, she stays kind and good and righteous, but more willing to allow herself to figure into the situation, not just the archetype. more willing to do what has to be done. more willing to be privately selfish. it makes her a better queen, and a more compassionate one, and when she returns to alistair’s side they’re both better.
the end is a happy one because i’m a sucker. it probably takes close to a year, but they do fall in love with each other again, and this time it’s not as ideals they’re projecting on each other. then they’re very, very happy.