kinda upset by how many people are insisting that davrin's narrative is more about assan than davrin
everything revolving around how davrin interacts with assan is also him talking to himself
which is a perspective problem that all of the companions have
they are all people who are too in their own heads to be able to resolve some of their deeper fundamental conflicts, because all of them are deeply lonely and alienated from their respective social environments, convinced in various ways that they cannot relate too others or be related too in turn, which is one of the things that makes them the perfect team to hunt down solas, who has the same problems writ large across the ages.
and in overcoming their issues and turning to rook and each other for external opinions while solas observes rook it demonstrates that other courses of action are possible and that there is value in trusting others with their loneliness and vulnerability but ANYWAY
davrin pretty clearly projects his feelings about his own upbringing onto assan, including the very
clearly present problems he has experienced as a dalish warden, if we let ourselves see them. he's not turning around to us and saying directly that he's been treated like shit by humans for most of his life in any run i've had so far. he also doesn't need too. he demonstrates it with the positions he holds.
how he advocates for not revealing the truth behind the origins of the elves, because it will make their lives harder than they already are.
how he tells assan that he needs to toughen up or he'll get chewed up by the world. that he's meant to be a hunter. that it's in his blood. it's what he's for.
how he changes his mind when he sees assan interact with the halla. how it clearly reminds him, along with his reconnection with endrin, that he was once a little boy who sang to halla. that he is more than violence, more than the hunt, more than a living weapon meant to be used once and then disposed of.
i've barely touched on his romance at all in my current run but like. please. even without it, just from my first run:
davrin is so clearly afraid of abandonment, of rejection. of letting his guard down and letting people in because it might compromise his dedication to his chosen path - *as are they all, in different ways, which is on purpose* - that he is trying to raise assan to protect him from davrin's own pain.
which doesn't work! that doesn't work.
davrin looks at assan and names him arrow. davrin looks at himself and calls himself a weapon. davrin doesn't let himself return to his clan because he anticipates their rejection. because he already didn't fit in with them to start with. davrin never gives us his last name.
the unity between warden and griffon comes when davrin stops just projecting his own pain and fears onto assan, and learns how to work with assan as he is. In doing so, it makes him realize he can be more than a weapon. That there's an option for him beyond sacrifice and vigilance. That he can find peace. it is a reconciliation of disparate aspects of his Self, which is another recurring narrative thread in the game.
Davrin doesn't have to completely disconnect from his people. He doesn't have to himself separate and away from everyone, protecting them from what he perceives as his inevitable end, or from harming them. Assan can just be Assan, and Davrin can just be Davrin, and they love each other.
he reconciles himself with his complex feelings around his clan, finds value in the lessons they taught him that he chafed against as a younger man. he reconciles himself with the complex history of the wardens, and looks for a different future with them too.
assan is bright and vibrant and alive and new and, to borrow davrin's word, "pure". He can be anything. He reminds Davrin that he can be anything, too.
Assan is a catalyst, he's not the actual focus. He is the catalyst for realizations in every scene we see him in in Davrin's personal quests, which are always actually about Davrin.
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