#flemethmeta

[broodwoof]

when i think about mythal as benevolence and retribution, when i think about the stories the dalish tell of her, when i think about what we see in the games...

i see, above all, a protector. in many ways, i do see a mother. but i do not see kindness, i do not see gentleness

i'm not saying that like She's Bad, Actually, rather that her approach to caring, to protecting, does not manifest as something gentle and warm and soft and kind. she is a mother, but in many ways she does not fit the motherly-goddess archetype

she is many things. an old woman. a spirit. a dragon. a warrior. a queen. a mother. a goddess. a person. blunt, coarse, mystical, mysterious, unrelenting, fanciful, sardonic, bitter, sharp, ruthless. she's angry

i think it is apt that she is depicted as a dragon. there is a conceptual brutality to dragons, profound grace mixed with unbelievable capacity for violence. she is the mother who will rend those who threaten her children apart, but she is not the mother who will gently lull those same children back to sleep after the fact

in a way, mythal's motherhood is exemplified in flemeth's motherhood of morrigan. there is, of course, a brutality to it, a cruelty, violent and destructive. but she is also clearly trying to prepare morrigan for a world that will - and does - seek to destroy her. a world that resents magic, a world that punishes women for their desires, a world that rewards love with destruction and regret. mythal - and flemeth, both separately and in the ways they are conjoined - has a great bitterness, a deep mistrust of the world, one that she tries to instill in morrigan

is it good? no! is it gentle? absolutely not! is it fucked up? it is! but all that can be true, and it can be true that she was trying to prepare morrigan. there was never any gentle motherhood to flemeth, just as there is no gentle motherhood to mythal. a strategic motherhood. a brutal, sharp, violent motherhood. a motherhood that subverts many of the conventions around the role and what type of person fulfills that role

mythal - and flemeth, and flemythal - make interesting mothers

[broodwoof]

Flemythal and Morrigan: Context of Cruelty

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~

let's address the elephant in the room, shall we? i love mythal. i am fascinated by her, and i have a deeply sympathetic view of her. mythal alone, mythal as an aspect within flemeth, mythal as the watcher in the crossroads, and mythal as an aspect within morrigan, all of them

at the same time, she was undeniably abusive towards morrigan. there is no sugarcoating the ways she harmed, manipulated, controlled, and abused morrigan

but i do believe there is a context underlying flemythal's behavior towards morrigan that is interesting to explore, and that's going to be my focus here

in veilguard, watcher!mythal, the aspect that exists in the crossroads, speaks of the elves - modern and ancient alike - in a way that has some maternal elements to it. but this is not a soft, warm maternalism: she is protective, but not gentle; compassionate, but not kind. i think that is part of what the aspect carries forth

we never meet flemeth alone, so any interpretation of who she was and what exactly she brings to flemythal is uncertain, but there is smth recognizably of mythal alone in how flemythal treats morrigan

at the same time... it is a long series of misdirects. she let morrigan find her grimoire, a grimoire where she laid bare the "truth" of what she would have of morrigan...

except, that wasn't the truth. not the way it was presented

she's far too experienced, intelligent, aware, savvy, and controlling to let such vital information be found. so, no, it was a red herring. but why the red herring?

with morrigan believing that flemeth raised her only to claim her body, to erase morrigan's personhood and superimpose her own in her daughter's flesh, of course she did not return - except to (possibly) face flemeth and (supposedly) destroy her

for the why, let's consider mythal's past

mythal was murdered by those she had ruled alongside. betrayed - as she (understandably!) saw it - by solas, the person she was closest to, her love, her beloved, her oldest friend. mythal knew, intimately, the need to stand on one's own, the need to possess your own power, to not be subject to another's will or whims

flemeth knew this, too

parenthood is never simple. there are always big questions of how to raise your child. and what is most important to the parent is often reflected in some way in how they raise their child. in flemythal's case, i think she was trying to teach morrigan the risk of trust

it is a cruel, twisted lesson, especially to push onto a child. but i think that is the underlying context of it all. to teach morrigan that she cannot entirely trust even those she has been with the longest. to teach her that anyone - even the mother who has raised her - can have an ulterior motive. to teach her to doubt, and to question, and to push, and to discover for herself what truth is

and she also emphasized power. that morrigan had to hone her own power. flemythal told her how to strengthen that power in a deeply fucked up way, which was another tool she provided her daughter with

"here," flemythal says without saying, "is who to trust: no one"

"and here," she says without saying, "is how to defend yourself from everyone, even me"

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