#empress celene

[jack-of-blades]

Dragon Age put important plot information in your games challenge

[linka-from-captain-planet]

eternally thinking about "Celene - sixteen, hollow-eyed, with both her parents dead" playing the perfect porcelain doll for Lady Mantillon

[citree]

The Masked Empress Celene 🕊️

[blightbright]

Celene's abuse of Briala in the Masked Empire (and Mythal/Solas parallels)

I'm finally reading The Masked Empire and wow it's really sad! Let's talk about Briala and Solas!

Trick Weekes is making direct, intentional comparisons between Celene -> Mythal, Briala -> Solas, and Celene/Briala -> Mythal/Solas, comparisons that are actually Felassan's last fucking words as Solas kills him. (That's a whole other post btw.)

Solas in DA:I says re: Orlais, "The powerful have always been the same. Only the costumes change." AND THIS BOOK IS A REAL FUCKING BUMMER.

Briala isn't magically influenced, magically restricted, or enslaved, but as a servant, the book explicitly discusses how her role by default requires walking on eggshells around everyday verbal and physical violence and sexual assault from people who answer to Celene, which Celene does not defend her or other people from, because Celene enacts it too in her own way. And even when Briala tries to be obedient and careful, this violence happens anyway. Briala also stays in her role despite her own suffering because she doesn't have easy options, she sees her comparative privilege, AND she's trying to strategize to help oppressed people.

Celene thinks she's progressive because she's not just a free-for-all moustache-twirling warmonger like Gaspard (cough Elgar'nan cough) and because she advocates for inclusion of some elves into inherently oppressive structures that harm them in those spaces. Thanks to her, a rare number of elves can work really really extra special hard and prove they have approximately as much merit as humans while being shit on constantly, wow! Meanwhile, no systemic critiques. No questioning of her or anyone's right to rule over people at all.

In some ways Celene is progressive by comparison (just like Mythal doesn't want the entire world torn apart by Blight, unlike Elgar'nan lmao), but it's insidious neoliberal racism versus overtly hostile racism (both are white supremacist). She's been through trauma herself, she thinks she's doing right by her people, and she believes that she loves Briala. That makes Celene an interesting, well-written villain and it's truly disgusting to see her mindset, i.e., she "allows" Briala to sleep a little longer in her bed one morning without waking her up right away. She's so self-congratulatory about how much she must love her that she lets her servant get a few more minutes to doze (after sexually abusing her...) before more acts of servitude. She does not see Briala as a full, autonomous being. The only truly loving gesture I've read so far is a young Celene telling young Briala to run away and escape after Briala's parents are murdered (wanting a loved one to be free is actually love) except that she's the one who set Briala's parents up to get murdered in the first place, and (like Mythal in Solas' memory) Celene refuses to give up her power.

In Celene's entitled and completely fucked view of the world, she says she envies Briala and, even early on, the book reveals that Briala is not so naive or lovestruck after all. Briala is deeply disturbed by Celene's comment, then keeps acting. Briala knows. Even before the most extreme betrayals are revealed to Briala, some part of Briala knows that she's in Celene's bed because of oppression. She loves Celene, she's attracted to Celene, but part of her knows that she leans into her love and attraction because it's the only thing that makes what is ultimately a political survival strategy/resistance strategy (for herself and her people) tolerable and survivable at all. She's not entirely faking but she's also not whole or safe, and that combo is a truly awful mindfuck to experience. Celene "loves" Briala but does not love her at all, because as bell hooks said, love and abuse cannot coexist.

It's a fucked up situation. It is not consensual, no matter how much Briala may long to be near Celene and how much she may sometimes enjoy sex with her. In a position of power as the literal monarch of an entire empire, sexual contact with your elven servant who is always at threat of violence if they do not obey or even if they do but just because powerful people feel like it, is sexual assault. Period. No matter how "nice" you are sometimes. No matter how much you "let" them sleep in some days because they're pretty.

And, of course, Celene commits overt genocide/massacres an Alienage and actively chooses to stamp down an elven rebellion for her own power. By the time DA:I rolls around, Briala is a rebellion leader who loves her abuser/oppressor, grieves her abuser/oppressor, and is willing to let that oppressor die if it's the way people may one day be free, and I also think everything I just said is true for Solas, to whatever degree it is even magically possible for him to do anything about it directly. Since, of course, he is even more restricted spiritually than Briala is.

Mythal is different than Celene. In some ways, it's less racialized (Mythal and Solas have loosely the same origins), and it's less stable over time, since there is a possible interpretation where they historically knew each other as actual friends, equals, and maybe even pre-body spirit lovers if you wanna headcanon that, whatever that word means for spirits (whereas Celene has always had power over Briala, even as children). Some of it is nearly identical, however. There are multiple Evanuris-related codexes and flashbacks that have direct parallels. We're seeing the gist of what Mythal as "the best of the Evanuris" was like when we see Weekes write Celene. Think about what also-abused Morrigan approves or disapproves of (parroting her mother's beliefs) at the start of DA:O to add another layer of Mythal's mindset, which aligns directly with DA references to Mythal serving "justice" to "the worthy" and strong. Fuck that. True justice protects the most vulnerable. In some ways, Mythal/Solas is even worse than Celene/Briala, too: magical spirit corruption is an extreme and literal version of the real but less tangible impacts of trauma, plus actual bodily modification at best and creation/vaguely parental vibes at worst, slavery rather than servitude, the possibility of magically-compelled direct orders if Mythal ever decided to use them (per how the Well of Sorrows works in canon), and deity-level power, the only power level higher than empress.

Briala reminds Felassan of Solas, and he's right, of course.

TL;DR? This book is fucking sad. Neither Solas nor Briala are naive about their abusers. Mythal and Celene are absolutely both abusers to Solas and Briala respectively. Idk if Mythal and Solas had sexualized contact any time after she bound him to her service, but if they did, that's sexual abuse. Kill Celene in DA:I unless you wanna do an evil playthrough. Free Solas in DATV. Briala and Solas both need hugs and safe love, not abuse couched in messages of love. They've both done some fucked up things, and that doesn't change anything I stated above.

[pathswechoose]

Dragon Age Fan Cast : The Grand Game

[lizzybeeee]

THIS HAS LIVED IN MY HEAD FOR TEN YEARS

[dragon-age-tournament]

Ship Tournament — Round #3 / Match 8 of 22

Briala/Celene

"Okay, I know a lot of people don't find them healthy or cute, and that's understandable, but also... I love that in canon, if you reconcile them, people apparently gossip that they “cavort like lovers half their age.” That's such a fun image!"

"Briala/Celene is good because it is not “will they, won’t they.” It is “should they, after all that,” and Dragon Age very deliberately answers that with “they might anyway.”"

"attraction and the damage are inseparable. briala isn’t drawn to celene because she’s safe or good for her, she’s drawn to her because celene is brilliant, beautiful, ruthless, and powerful in exactly the ways that make her impossible to ignore. and celene doesn’t just want some court ornament at her side, she wants briala specifically, someone clever enough to challenge her, useful enough to matter, and close enough to wound her. that’s what makes the ship interesting. it’s not “aw they were in love once,” it’s that they are perfectly designed to fascinate each other and perfectly positioned to hurt each other, which gives the whole thing way more voltage than a cleaner relationship ever would."

"What sells this ship for me is that it has actual BITE. Celene isn't just some sad doomed ex for Briala to pine over - she’s magnetic, she’s the Empress, she’s gorgeous, intelligent, impossible to separate from the whole glittering nightmare of Orlais, and I can completely buy Briala being unable to fully stop wanting her even when she has every reason to. And Briala isn't just “the one who got hurt,” either - she’s clever, politically dangerous, and fully capable of being the most important person in the room without sitting on the throne. That is such a good dynamic. They don’t bore each other for a second. They don’t make each other safer. They make each other more intense, more compromised, more alive. That’s the good stuff!!"

vs. Anders/Nathaniel

"The contrast between their characters — Nathaniel being much more reserved, Anders being flippant in everything he does — make their interactions so interesting to watch. Nathaniel always seems so reluctant to even acknowledge Anders and still he initiates most of their in-game conversations. It's the juxtaposition that is so fun to see."

"nathaniel/anders is sooo “dry sad man gets repeatedly bothered by one annoying blond apostate until it becomes sexual tension” to me and i’m completely right actually 😭 like COME ON the vibe is immaculate. anders would be needling him constantly and nathaniel would act sooo tired of it while obviously paying attention to every single thing he says. and then beneath all that they’d actually get each other in such a good way?? both carrying guilt, both trying to be better, both kind of haunted but in different fonts. they’d be funny and messy and weirdly tender and i love that for them"

"Grumpy x annoying is unbeatable"

"This is one of those pairing to me that just straight up is canon. Their banter screams antagonistic flirting leading to bad (excellent) choices to work out that pent up aggression. They're both so fun, and so freaky, and desperately clinging to some normalcy in this wild sudden chapter of their lives. Then you see the way they're both so excited to see each other again even YEARS later? There is nothing platonic about that reunion. You just know they thought about each other constantly, even after all that time, and only a short few months actually spent together. Very right person, wrong time. And Nate would have no issue loving both Anders and Justice equally— he already loved them separate, why not together?"

Which is the better ship?

Briala/Celene

Anders/Nathaniel

Voting ended onMay 9

[abyssal-ilk]

it is very important to me that vivienne does not give a personal fuck about celene if you allow her to be assassinated. she doesn't have any approval change no matter the outcome– she doesn't have any approval change period throughout the entire mission. no matter the outcome of the ball she is emotionally completely unaffected either way, and we know this because of banter between her and cole. there isn't any "hurt" for cole to latch onto, and he admits that it confuses him to vivienne. which makes sense why he would be confused! vivienne had known celene for twenty years at that point!! but the only time we see any sort of feeling between vivienne and celene is vivienne's bitter feelings of being replaced by morrigan and then dorian teasing her a bit when, in the case of celene surviving, vivienne puts on the fake polite game mask and says she was thankful to have a part in saving her.

vivienne has a lot of very deep connections with other people but despite knowing her for twenty years, celene is NOT one of them. and i think about it a lot