"the lords of fortune are too nice! theyre pirates! why arent they stealing cultural artifacts?? this is woke"
im gonna hold your hand while i say this. the entire plot of da2 is about how isabela stole a cultural artifact and her greed destroyed all her friends lives including the city theyve lived in for the past decade. isabela learned the consequences for not giving people an option to have their culture of Course shes playing different now. HOW FUCKING EVER. when you speak to taash about this very topic of artifacts. they very specifically mention that anything deemed culturally important is allowed to be BOUGHT BACK by the culture. the lords of fortune are EXTORTING PEOPLE for their lost culture.
you can point blank call it extortion and taash gets mad and says that No. it is a fee because the lords found it and have done a service for the people so its only fair to compensate the finders. that is still extortion. the lords of fortune are pirates. they are not a force of good. they PRETEND to be a force of good. but if they were to find something culturally significant to the dalish and the dalish cant afford the finders fee to get it back. their culture is still lost to them.
the pirates arent sanitized. theyre just run by a woman who was almost murdered for stealing artifacts and watched her best friend almost die to protect her (or was handed over to be put to death in par vollen). and she decided that wasnt worth it so shes now being Smarter about stealing culture and giving people an option to be extorted. a thing she refused to do with the arishok and the tome of koslun