#da2meta

[broodwoof]

varric — character growth from da2 -> veilguard

under the cut are the ppl who want to be @'d in my meta! lmk if u ever want to be added to this list btw~

varric is and has always been a man who wants people to live comfortable, happy lives. he knows it won't happen — "I fought my own brother, Daisy. Nobody said this was going to be happy story" — but that is what he wants. and as much as he tries to act as though he is ambivalent, that desire is what makes him take his crossbow and go out to fight. he is trying to protect people. to protect regular civilians. to protect mages. to protect templars. he's not going to choose sides, he is fundamentally a centrist in the mage-templar conflict: "I've got friends in the Circle and drinking buddies in the templars. All of them matter."

his desire to protect people, to not pronounce a "good" and "bad" side in conflicts, also manifests in his tendency to blame individuals rather than systems. he blames anders for turning the mage-templar tensions into a full-blown conflict. he blames meredith and anders for kirkwall. he blames bartrand and himself for the red lyrium

in dai, he is still quite the centrist. i haven't played the different versions, but i have seen people (sorry, can't remember who) say that his character changes depending on what hawke did in da2, whether they sided with the mages or the templars. that supports his characterization as a man defined by his loyalty more than his own, independent morals

cassandra found him after the events of da2 and questioned him. she threatened him, stabbed the book right in front of him — and he, frankly, did not know her at all and had no way of knowing how willing she was to follow through on her threats. she then took him with her to the conclave, only releasing him as her prisoner after the explosion at the temple of sacred ashes

but he stayed

varric had no real reason to trust cassandra. he is understandably wary of her throughout a large portion of the game. but also, varric has been — and continues to be! — deeply committed to kirkwall. that is his home. but he did not choose to return to it, instead staying in haven, then skyhold. he chose to go into battle once more. he makes light of it, but the fact is, he put himself at great risk in order to help fix the world, to seal the hole in the sky. and this prior to the inquisition realizing corypheus was at the temple. this, prior to the discovery of red lyrium — something he blames himself for — at the temple. he stayed by choice, willingly, in order to help

he avoids picking sides in conflicts, but he is deeply willing to put himself directly in harms way in order to protect people. it's an interesting dynamic! instead of being driven by a specific cause, he is driven by his desire for people to have the opportunity for a good life

then, we come to veilguard. after the events of trespasser, varric and harding went to track solas. there is more in The Missing, of course, but as usual i am not going to reference supplementary materials/canon here. but we know from veilguard's own canon that they tracked solas

the ritual begins

varric was friends with anders. and he continues to care about anders, even after everything that went down in kirkwall. and, yes, he's still angry at anders, too. but we see that he is willing to shoulder the blame for things as well, and i think he shoulders much of the blame for the mage-templar conflict igniting as it did. he is a spymaster. he bought protection for anders and for the clinic. i can't imagine there was never a point where he told himself that he should have known, that he should have been able to figure it out. that he played his cards wrong. that he pushed anders away when he shouldn't have, or reached out when he shouldn't have, or did something wrong

anders feels like something varric should've been able to stop

and, by extension, the destruction of so much of kirkwall feels like something varric should have been able to stop

and corypheus feels like something varric should've been able to stop, and keep stopped

and then, the red lyrium. as i said earlier, he blames himself for that. and it is interwoven into everything. meredith used the red lyrium. corypheus used it. the red templars used it. each red lyrium spur the inquisition sees is his fault, in his mind

we talk about solas being defined by his regrets, but i really think varric is, too. he just doesn't show it as much. he hides his regret under humor, under a seeming carelessness that defies his actions

varric will work to protect people. to try and give them a good quality of life while he's at it (thus him ending up as viscount of kirkwall!) and this is a huge part of why he pursues solas, of course. but it's not the only part of it

solas is varric's friend. and, what's more, he's a friend that varric refuses to let go of. he let go of anders, he let that friendship decay, and then he had to sit with that regret, that feeling that he could have stopped it. he refuses to make the same mistake with solas. he will try, he will not abandon solas once he stops being an easy friend, he will pursue his friend to the ends of thedas and, once there, he will reach out instead of attack

lace tries to convince him to attack, but he insists on talking to solas. even if rook says it's a bad idea, he will not be swayed. it is only when solas absolutely refuses to stop and varric can see the ritual being performed right in front of him that he truly attacks (grappling for the dagger vs. just threatening solas with bianca)

much later, rook is imprisoned in the same place that holds solas for most of the game, and there they encounter varric. whether a manifestation, a representation, a spirit taking varric's form for rook, or varric himself in some manner, i still think we can safely conclude that what this varric says is truthful to the real varric. and one of the things he tells rook is that confronting solas as he did was his choice, and that they can't take that from him

while likely a salve to rook — in time, if not in that moment — this is also so incredibly central to varric's growth over the course of this series. he has made countless choices. some of them have been the act of not choosing. but this? this was a choice, made deliberately, made consciously, made with a full awareness of the risk he was taking and a willingness to take that risk himself

he's right. rook does not get to take this from him. this is his choice. this is his final choice. and varric has always been a storyteller, and what better way to end a story than by the hero doing the right thing, taking a stand, trying his best?

this is one thing varric will not have to regret

@fadetouchedlurker

@flawed---by---design

@sacredashes

@mindtrove

@jackals-ships

@guacamolleee

@griffongrey

@in-the-drowning-deep

[storybookhawke]

This painting appears several places in Dragon Age Inquisition, and I have a headcanon about this man.

Karl Thekla writes a magical tome on force magic, both theory and practice, and unexpectedly but understandably gets attention among mages in all of Thedas, not just the south. Because of this, he is made to get a portrait painted for the back of his printed books since he's now a somewhat famous mage scholar.

That's why he looks unhappy because painting is a long process he didn't want, and Anders gives him a ton of shit over the silly little hat they made him wear for the portrait.

It's also one of the reasons why he is sent to Kirkwall's Circle, because it's the circle with the most mages specializing in force magic and thus a research powerhouse.

[broodwoof]

ooh saw a good post, queued it as i am the queue mutual, but it got me thinking about a lot of things

but very simply put: what we as dragon age players know has no relationship to what the characters know, and this is explicitly intentional

as players we gain access to a wealth of specific knowledge. but even we, as players, are not given hard truth all the time - the codices throughout all the games are written with a deliberate in-world bias

like the one codex that states that sexism does not exist in thedas, and then ppl getting upset because it obviously does? well.... gestures at our world.... bet you anything you could find countless modern articles saying that sexism does not exist/does not exist anymore/does not exist here, wherever 'here' is to the writer

have your feelings about it! but i'm just saying that the codices are deliberately written with bias. DAO literally gives you different codices depending on your race. treating them as Absolute Truth is going to lead to personal frustration when they are inevitably revealed to be limited, biased, and sometimes entirely wrong

the way the crows are written and talked about through the series vs. what we hear from one single character (zevran my beloved) who remains loyal to the crows while also trying to leave them while ALSO not wanting to display vulnerability vs. what we see from (one) particular house in veilguard so many in-game years after DAO... the way qunari are written about and how variable it is ("they're monsters" vs. "they have a real culture")... the way the grey warden order is discussed... the way that knowledge and opinion of magic varies wildly... the way that certain cultures handle their mages and magic being better, but other cultures not knowing or even deliberately suppressing that knowledge...

again, ppl will have their feelings about all of this and that's fine. but using a codex or something we as players learn from a prior game/dlc to point out a seeming "retcon" is not really engaging with some of the underlying themes of these games. the biases have been confirmed repeatedly. this was a real intent right from the inception of this series

and hey, it's natural! we literally play as the warden, as hawke, as the inquisitor, and now as rook. it's hard to set aside our knowledge from prior games. but in-game, within the narrative itself, those characters don't have deep knowledge of what the other characters do/have done. hawke certainly knows of the warden, but cannot recount every battle, every codex, every conversation the warden had with people. thus, hawke cannot make use of every bit of knowledge the warden - and we as players - gained through that game. further, hawke's understanding of what the warden did is colored by biased recountings and an emphasis on certain story beats over others

in DAI, in early conversation with cassandra, she tells the inquisitor about the time she "single-handedly" slayed a dragon... and how twisted that story had become over its retellings. and, i mean, solas' everything. the evanuris. but i like referencing cassandra in this because this is something that happened in a single lifetime, yet has already grown into a fanciful tale that discounts a huge amount of what actually happened

she knows that mages helped save the day and protect the divine. we know that, too. but the world of thedas? the vast majority of those who know the story do not know that mages helped. and, again, this was within one lifetime. many who know the story were alive when the real event took place. but it doesn't matter! because they weren't there, and they're hearing about it from other people, who heard about it from other people, and so on, and at various points things were dropped or added

and, hell, the entirety of DA2 is a story told by varric to cassandra. i know some people get frustrated with considering that aspects of it may have been falsified because that makes it hard to figure out the truth (and that's fair!), but i think it's worth acknowledging that this narrative direction was not only intentional, but utterly explicit. we literally see varric telling cassandra the story of DA2

[broodwoof]

varric is so haunted by red lyrium

I'm da2, he pursued the idol - made of red lyrium - for money. it destroys kirkwall (yes there was a lot more going on, but the idol was significant) and destroyed his family. destroyed his friend's family (again: more going on, but still)

then in dai it had spread even further. the toll was even greater. it had infected the landscape, had been fed body after body, and was (part of) what empowered a being to rip open the sky

in davg, we see how this arc is so, so representative. how in da2, we are shown how modern dwarves, all unknowing, try to profit off the blood of their ancestors. we are shown the core corruption of dwarven society, a corruption at least partly festering as a result of scrubbing the histories

in dai, we are shown how deeply interwoven lyrium is. that game demonstrates its physical presence in the world, an ancient, primordial presence, now red and infuriated and springing forth. but it's one thing to hear about lyrium veins, and another to see huge crystalline growths emerging into the open air, a kind of forcible reclamation of the surface the dwarves were driven from. and it was fed bodies, it grew through and in them, an inversion of how it had been used to grow the evanuris' bodies. a violence once enacted upon it, now enacted by it

and then in veilguard, the circle closes. lyrium in varric's heart, the furious blood of the titans meeting directly with the lifeblood of its descendants, used as a weapon to slaughter one and wielded by one of those who used it to forge a body for himself. after, held by lace, it gives to her the ancient life and history and force of her people. perhaps varric's death unlocked that. perhaps it would have given it to any dwarf who could touch it first in life rather than in dying. but it was a tool of death for one of its distant descendants, then a means of reclaiming an ancestral history for another

and this resonates with bellara's struggles and through her, elven struggles with their own fraught history, recently turned on its head. dwarves have been profiting off the very literal blood of their ancestors for centuries, selling it to be consumed by elves and humans; elves descend from conquerors, tyrants and slavers who drove the dwarves underground

there is so much deep history present here. so much finally addressed, finally seen, finally, properly understood in its real enormity

[broodwoof]

Bethany Hawke: Warden, or Circle Mage

while I've heard really good arguments for why she would do better as a circle mage, I definitely lean warden for her

of course, the key thing is that both options are bad ones. her arc, is she survives, is always going to end in a kind of layered tragedy

circle:

the biggest issue I see with the circle is the fact that bethany was in combat for so long. being in sustained danger, being in combat, can create a reactivity. if a templar grabs her, even innocuously, she might react - and that might lead to her being killed or made tranquil

another big issue is that she may be punished in lieu of hawke, particularly if hawke sided with the mages

essentially, bethany is deeply vulnerable as a circle mage, the very act of defending herself a crime punishable by death or tranquility, and may be used as a bargaining chip/threat/punishment for her sibling. she has absolutely no recourse in this situation besides playing The Good Girl and hoping it works... and that it keeps working

she's also going to live with constant guilt. bc hawke is still out there. everyone she cares about is still out there. while she's... here. fed. has a bed. educated

she knows how to help, and she's forbidden from helping. she has to sit back and wonder if the only surviving member of her family will be killed; and, if so, if her presence would have prevented it

i think that this is a unique misery, one that she has no real distraction from, no real way to alleviate. it is a helpless mystery, with her family put on the line to protect her while she's safe ("safe")

but, she's bethany. everyone did everything for her, and she never felt right being anything other than small and grateful

wardens:

in the wardens, her reactivity will not be punished. in fact, it will be understood, familiar, and it's entirely possible that some of her fellow wardens will be able to help her navigate it

in many ways, it will be terrible. she will be fighting darkspawn. she will be losing people. there's no gentling that

but i think the ability to take action, to be in control of her own life, her own fate, and to not have to hide - because with the wardens, she wouldn't have to hide her magic, wouldn't have to make herself appear weaker than she is, lest she be seen as a threat - would be cathartic

and i do feel that over time she'd grow close with some of her fellow wardens, and be able to have a familiar sort of dynamic of fighting at the side of someone she trusts

to the wardens - as an organization, i mean - she's just another tool. she's not special for being hawke's sister. they've had kings and queens in their ranks, they've had prisoners and murderers, they've had cruel and kind people, they've had and have all sorts. and we've never seen the wardens use any one member as a bargaining chip. at the level of the organization, bethany is already dead, in a way; the same way all the wardens are already dead. killing her to punish hawke would not only be useless, it would be an actively bad idea, as there are never enough wardens and always too many darkspawn, and bethany is a deeply capable mage

and i think bethany would take some solace in the fact that she is fighting smth "truly" evil (in her view, at least; i have more complex thoughts about darkspawn, but y'know) and helping the world. she's not having to hide, she's not having to make herself small and palatable, she can be exactly who she wants to be without reservation, and she can help protect people - this, from the woman who spent her entire childhood being protected and seeing how that hurt her family

[broodwoof]

Merrill in Canon

fundamental motivation:

knowledge - definite, primary motivation

advancement/protection/strengthening of elves/dalish - not definite but could be inferred

personality traits:

exacting; prideful; discerning; confident; self-aware; motivated; curious; assertive; condescending (rarely, but it happens!); analytical; earnest; withdrawn; sympathetic

[storybookhawke]

do you think Anders (and mages in general) would renounce and actively go against the term "apostate?"

apostate means "a person who renounces a religious or political belief or principle," as the chantry is the aggressor who brands mages outside of their religious control as apostates.

perhaps Anders would not allow himself or any other mage be called an apostate, because they're not heathens who 'abandoned' the Maker. they're mages and nothing more, he might argue that living freely should not come with any additional labels.

or would it turn into a term of pride, like a rallying cry once the southern circles rebelled against the chantry's control? hmmmmm

[broodwoof]

Merrill meta

cw: canon character death; blood magic; discussion of anti blood magic sentiment beyond that, general heads up for discussion of the fate of Clan Sabrae, culture shock, grief, guilt, Chantry/Circle propaganda, etc.

So far, I haven’t written meta specifically and exclusively about Merrill, although I do have a lot of thoughts about her. A caveat: I am many years removed from playing DA2 and have no real plans to replay it (it’s a good game, but it’s very heavy for me for certain reasons), so I won’t be as specific here as I might be in other meta. This is going to be more about the sense I get of her overall character and her arc within the narrative.

First, I want to talk a bit about her history.

Merrill comes from the Sabrae clan, but was born in the Alerion clan, in Nevarra. But Alerion had sufficient mages and Sabrae did not, so Merrill was transferred to the Sabrae clan when she was four years old. At that age, she may be able to remember her prior clan, or she may not, especially if any part of the journey or transition was traumatic to her—which I find likely. Not because the Dalish are abusive or anything like that, but because the simple nature of leaving the familiar for the new can be traumatic, especially for a child, doubly so for one new to her magic. So it’s not clear what, exactly, her feelings about this are, but I think it’s safe to say that she does have feelings about it. She had what could easily be considered a tumultuous and possibly traumatic experience as a young child.

The Sabrae clan loses Tamlen for sure, and possibly Mahariel as well, depending on the origin the player chooses. Merrill does not contract the Blight, but she does lose one—and possibly two—clanmates to it, and the Keeper insists that they move on, despite her wanting to stay and research the Eluvian. I think there’s a lot of room for interpretation about why she wanted so badly to stay: it could have been primarily rooted in a desperate attempt to save Tamlen, and possibly cure Mahariel; alternatively, it could have been primarily rooted in a desire for her people to know more of their history. Regardless of primacy, I think both aspects were present, and would be shaped by the specifics of her relationship with Tamlen and possibly Mahariel.

I’m a little fuzzy on the exact timeline here so I’m gonna be generalizing, but she took a piece of the Eluvian with her; she contacted a demon at some point; she became a blood mage; she was rejected by her Keeper; her Keeper taught her clan to fear her; and she ended up in Kirkwall with Hawke and the rest of them. Both the demon and the blood magic were things her Keeper knew about, so they happened prior to Hawke approaching the Sabrae clan and ending up with Merrill joining, and if memory serves, her clanmates were wary about her at this point, but not as fearful as they later became.

The point of this meta is not to explore matters of fault, only Merrill as a character, but as an aside I will say that I think a great deal of this was the Keeper’s fault, but I also understand where she was coming from. We as players are accustomed to blood magic being more nuanced than it is presented culturally in-game, but I think it’s worth remembering and recognizing just how reviled blood magic truly is in-world. The Dalish are not a monolith, each clan individual, but among those we see they seem to share the opposition to blood magic with much of Thedas, with the obvious exception of Tevinter. Although even that is more complex than “Tevinter thinks blood magic is good!” but again, not the point of this meta.

I am, however, bringing this up in part to acknowledge that this in-world bias is at play with the DA2 companions. Anders has been raised with Chantry and Circle propaganda, and still believes much of it; Fenris is an ex-slave from Tevinter, where he saw blood magic at its worst. And I think even among those who accept her more—Varric and Isabela, for instance—they are still deeply prejudiced against and wary about blood magic. And I’m certain she recognizes that. How can she not?

So I think during the course of the game, she feels very much on the outside of the little group Hawke has assembled. There are certainly moments of kindness and camaraderie between her and the other companions, as well as moments of paternalistic contempt, but overall I think she views herself as being on the outside. And she’s also on the outside in her home life. Whether Alerion or Sabrae, she has spent her life with Dalish clans, but is now living in an alienage with city elves. There’s a huge culture shock going on here. There’s also no cultural familiarity between her and the companions. And if Hawke romances her (I’m ignoring rivalmance because I haven’t done it) then she’s with a human. I’m not saying that’s bad, but I am saying that Hawke could never be a cultural touchstone for her. And that’s okay, by itself! But I do think it contributes to and exacerbates the feeling of otherness, in her specific situation.

Now, the fate of Clan Sabrae. If they survive, Merrill has been shown as clearly as possible that her Keeper does not trust her and is actively working against her—whether it’s “for her own good” or not is immaterial (and shitty, condescending, and paternalistic as well, even if the Keeper truly thought this the best or was trying to save the many at the [potential] cost of the one), as it is still a major violation of trust. If they do not survive, then Merrill would feel—true or false—that it is her fault, at least in part. That it was the Keeper’s actions which endangered the clan would not mean that someone deep in grief would not draw the connection from their actions to the end result; this is a normal experience among people who grieve, although nothing about grief is a monolith, either.

So at this point, Merrill has felt: some kind of way about being transferred between clans; a loss due to Tamlen (and possibly Mahariel); rejected for her ideas about the Eluvian; judged by her clan for her use of blood magic; rejected by her clan as a whole; disrupted due to intense culture shock; judged and demeaned pretty heavily for said culture shock; also judged and demeaned for the blood magic, this time by those she works with/may consider friends in Kirkwall. 

So I think that it makes sense how, in a romance with Hawke, she’s… not really there so much? There are comments, I think from Bodahn, about how she doesn’t seem to be acting/feeling very much at home in Hawke’s estate. And of course she’s still going back to her home in the alienage, both because of her continued efforts to restore the Eluvian and because she has begun to build a life there for herself and is still connected to the other elves there, even if there is still a degree of mutual wariness. But I think her long history of rejection after rejection has made her—understandably!—wary to trust anyone. 

However kind and compassionate Hawke may be in this situation, they would not be able to cure Merrill of all her trauma through love, even within the entire lengthy span of the game. So I don’t find it surprising that she continues to exist on the periphery. It would be easy and natural for her to feel like she’s only being provisionally accepted. And at the end of the day, I think that sense has less to do with how Hawke is treating her or how sincere their feelings are, and more to do with Merrill’s background and history.

However, I do think it would be a bit different with a blood mage Hawke. I think under those circumstances, she would feel more deeply accepted. I don’t think it would get rid of the feeling of it being provisional entirely, being far too simple a cure for far too complex a wound, but I think the familiarity and shared basis would help put her at ease. She’s not being accepted despite the form of magic she chooses to employ. Of course, this interpretation depends a bit on Hawke and their point of view on blood magic, whether it varies between their own use and how others use it or if it’s more broadly accepting, but I’m going with the idea that a blood mage Hawke would likely be tolerant of blood magic, even if they only used it as a last resort or out of desperation or for any other of the many, varied reasons why someone might choose to utilize such a loathed type of magic.

So tempted to continue this into “and this is why I ship her with—” territory but I’ll leave it here so that those who just want Merrill content don’t have to sit through my shipping conversation lmao.