Samuel, he/him. 18. Gay and trans. Doctor Who stan first, human man next. River Song/11/Clara/12 antis dni. "Mama may not have raised a bitch but I’ll be damned, she raised a dumbass." - My friend Luther
Most of the Dragon Age franchise holds a continuous in-universe debate on the Circle of Magi’s existence in Southern Thedas; whether it should even exist, and if so, how it should exist. A key argument point are the many abuses mages suffer behind its walls. However, among the long list of abuses, the sexual violence is sometimes overlooked or understated.
When referring to sexual violence in the Circle, the first example that usually comes to mind is Ser Otto Alrik of the Gallows in Dragon Age II (DA2). Anders’s Act 2 companion quest, “Dissent”, is about Alrik’s “Tranquil Solution” to use the Rite of Tranquility on every mage in Kirkwall. In his letter to Divine Justinia, he proposes the following:
“The Tranquil Solution is our answer. All mages at the age of majority must be made Tranquil. They'll coexist peacefully, retain their usefulness—a perfect strategy! It's simply the best way to ensure mages obey the laws of men and Maker.”
Notice how Alrik puts an emphasis on “age of majority” and “retain their usefulness”? This would be sketchy on its own, but there is more evidence that Alrik is a rapist.
Confronting Alrik in “Dissent”, the player discovers him about to recapture a feeling young mage girl. She begs not to be made tranquil, saying she’ll do anything to avoid it. Alrik responds by saying “That's right. Once you're Tranquil, you'll do anything I ask.” The implication given his leer is that he is planning on raping her, something he already does to others. A Tranquil woman named Helena and her former lover, a mage named Jaken, have the following ambient dialogue in the Gallows:
Jaken: I've been searching for you everywhere. You weren't in your rooms, the libraries...
Helena: We have no scheduled appointments at this time, apprentice.
Jaken: No! Helena, it's me. Don't you remember me?
Helena: Of course. YOu are Apprentice Jaken. We were once involved in an illicit relationship.
Jaken: Illicit? I love you!
Helena: I am Ser Alrik's now. He is the only one who can command me.
The Tranquil are not always regarded as real people, even by their fellow mages. This is, of course, not true – just because they lack full mental capacity and are a vulnerable population does not make them less deserving of personhood. But the fact that they lack the capacity to properly consent is what so easily leads to them being abused as they are. If the Chantry actually cared about the wellbeing of the Tranquil, there would be proper protections for them put in place, to avoid people like Alrik getting away with his blatant crimes.
It is not just the Tranquil who suffer from sexual violence, though. Any mage is fair game for the templars. Alain, a mage first encountered in the DA2 quest “Act of Mercy”, can later be found in the Gallows. If Ser Karras survives the quest, Alain can be overheard saying, “Ser Karras said if I tell anyone he's been in my chambers, he'll make me Tranquil.” But even if Ser Karras does not survive, during the quest “Best Served Cold” when Alain is encountered again, he will uncomfortably say, “You don't know what it’s like. We're locked in our cells all day, no light, no air. The templars... ask things of us.” Alain is still being raped, just by someone else.
It is worth noting that Ser Alrik and Ser Karras are no random grunts, either. They are both Knight-Lieutenants, meaning the only two people of higher rank are Cullen and Meredith. They have been rewarded, granted even more control for their horrid actions. Other templars are supposed to obey them without question, or the Knight-Lieutenants have the power to strip them of their knighthood.
While the Gallows has the most examples, by virtue of being a central part of the plot in DA2, sexual violence is by no means exclusive to Kirkwall’s Circle.
In Dragon Age: Origins, during the mage origin, you can overhear an apprentice mage’s ambient dialogue: "Gerda told me the templars watch us while we bathe. I hope that's not true." And while voyeurism is certainly not as severe as rape, that is canonically confirmed by Anders to have happened in the Ferelden Circle as well, in a banter with Sebastian:
Sebastian: Did something happen to you in the Circle? I understand there were problems in Ferelden...
Anders: Are you saying a mage can only be unhappy in the Circle if demons were involved?
Anders: No, it's not about Uldred. It's not about being beaten or raped by a templar— that does happen, but I've been fortunate.
In the novel Dragon Age: Asunder, Cole watches two mages of the Val Royeaux Circle have a conversation about the infamous “ghost of the spire” (namely, himself). During this conversation, one mage suggests it may have been a templar the girl saw. Her response:
"You think I don't know every templar in the tower by now? Some of them far better than I'd like." She touched the bruise on her cheek, and the elven boy scowled but said nothing.
Saying that she knows templars “far better than she’d like” implies that she has had suffered from non-consensual intimacy – aggressively, given she was wounded.
The fantasy of a sexually available mage even bleeds out into the common person. In the DA2 quest “Repentance”, accompanying Sebastian to investigate the Harimann family involves witnessing Ruxton Harimann carrying out a sexual roleplay with an elven woman in which he says, “Now, you be the naughty apprentice, and I’ll be the templar torturer…” No shame on consensual roleplay, that’s not my point. My point is that this specific scenario did not come from nowhere; it is perpetuated by the Circle.
This is why I believe it is only fair to call the sexual violence mages suffer from to be a systemic issue, part of the entire structural Circle of Magi. These are not individual errors, but rather a built in part of how the Circles are set up. The Chantry giving the Templar Order complete control over the mages as they do easily creates an environment where abuse can flourish, including sexual violence. This cannot be fixed without changing the underlying system of the Circle itself.
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SOURCES:
Dragon Age: Asunder
Codex entry: Templar Letter (DA2)
Codex entry: Ser Alrik's Letter (DA2)
Dialogue: Ambient remark from apprentice mage (DAO)
Dialogue: Ambient remark from Alain (DA2)
Dialogue: Party banter between Anders and Sebastian (DA2)
Dialogue: Obtaining the quest “Dissent” from Anders (DA2)
Dialogue: Alain during the quest “Best Served Cold” (DA2)
Dialogue: Ruxton during the quest “Repentance” (DA2)
I am using my very limited phone data to share that my family has been cut off from our internet by Bell because we owe them $305. We rely on our internet for so much, it is a necessity... 😭 Please help us get our internet back if you can!
We've talked about Grace's rainbow symbolism in this scene, but I haven't seen anyone pointing out the detail of Stratt having a line of countries' flags behind her on her first appearance
Live-action comedy short film about a wildlife researcher's repeated, increasingly cartoonish failed attempts to tag members of a particular rare species for study, and their burgeoning paranoia that it's the same specific bird every time. There is no explicit textual confirmation whether they're correct.
ryland grace is aroace. however he is also stratt’s dead wife, rocky’s red string of fate starcrossed soulmate, & intensely violently homosexual for mark “simon iron lung” iplier. all things are true & all things can coexist. peace & love on planet erid
(I'm Welsh and we all have a secret organ that alerts us when someone talks about Wales)
I love Wales. I’ve been doing this for years. I’m studying it all. Every single saint. Every scheduled monument. Every geographical feature. Every obscure historical Welsh holiday tradition. Every major archeological find. Every battle against the English. Every fragmented early medieval Welsh poem. I will be there. And the great thing is that there is around 230,000 years of human history in the region so I may never run out of Welsh history to explore.
Hello, I'm Ahmed, 23 years old. I was studying computer science at the Islamic University in Gaza before the war. I aspired to build a brigh
Hello friends, I thank you very much for your continuous support, but right now I am in urgent need of you and your help. We are now in the holy month of Ramadan, which requires a lot of expenses, and there has been a significant rise in prices.
I also need to pursue my dream after losing everything. I need your support greatly—I need more than $1,500 to pay my university fees so I can receive my certificate and apply for scholarships.
You can find the images below the post.
Therefore, I am in great need of your help. I support my family, and at the same time, I am trying to achieve myself and continue my education.
i know the way people talk about their pets now is probably how we’ve been doing it for all of history. a cat owner in ancient rome saw their cat lounging on the dining pillows and commented “he thinks himself to be the senator claudius 🤣”
lets address my favourite topic: dev bias in writing. "i don't like sera because she's annoying" the guy who wrote sera also wrote jacob taylor. can we take the marginalised romances away from this guy. he hates black people and he hates lesbians. there's a certain impulse in some of these devs to take...i guess schadenfreude?? in writing romances that "punish" the player - from gaider's "alistair is a manchild and terrible partner" to whatever weekes says about solas - there is something in particular in these devs' loathing for women (or people playing women) that makes them willing to weaponise unimaginable bigotry in punishment.
kristjanson writes a lesbian, and gives you absolutely no opportunity to extend her kindness or empathy: sera is marginalised across several dimensions, both in- and out of-of-universe, as an elf, as neurodivergent, as a lesbian, and her romance is marked by scenes you are intended to read as hysterical, irrational, unreasonable. your reward for being interested in a neurodivergent lesbian is getting shouted at, having a bow pointed at you, don't you regret this? and again, in mass effect - you romanced Black man and he leaves you without a word, he takes up with another woman and starts a family behind your back, what did you expect?
kristjanson's writing is so full of racist, homophobic, bigoted tropes that are levelled against the player and the romance in a way that feels like punishment, like he wants to make sure no-one (no woman) can have a joyful, fulfilling relationship with a marginalised person, like you don't deserve to be successful in these relationships without conditions. and i love a difficult, unconventional, even tragic romance in games, but in contrast to the treatment the other romances get it is notable to me that kristjanson singles out the lesbian and the Black man for treatment that not only punishes the characters involved but leans heavily on stereotypes particular to those groups.
if you are a woman, or playing a woman, devs feel all too comfortable belittling and insulting you for pursuing the romances they choose to make available in their games, to the point of self-sabotage, and that is a significant factor that needs to be taken into account in any analysis of how these storylines play out.
Jonathan Joss was an Indigenous, gay man who was murdered on the first day of Pride month as well as Indigenous History Month. He died protecting his trans husband. Homophobia and racism aren’t marks of the past, and this is a heart breaking reminder of that.
Praying for a safe journey back to the spirit world, Uncle ❤️🩹🦅
Today is the anniversary of the death of Jonathan Joss (King of the Hill, Parks and Rec). Jonathan Joss was an Indigenous, gay man who died protecting his transgender husband, on the first day of Pride month. Today we remember him and how he protected his family.
i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users
would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.
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