#halward pavus

[alinamghart]

Dorian studies n.6

"I'm never what you wanted, Father, or have you forgotten?"

Father and son, a never ending battle.

[bleedthebeat]

the point of me doing all of that timeline nonsense is to talk about the letter from alexius to halward shortly after alexius takes dorian in. there are two primary takeaways i have from this and they both make me crazy. first:

He's rather despondent over the life's path you've charted for him—if I may speak frankly—and thus, I think a part of him sabotages all efforts to keep him on the straight and narrow, either to spite you or to punish himself.

this sentence is. it’s a lot. in knowing dorian for such a short time, alexius understands him far better than his parents ever have. (“I know my son.” What my father knows of me would barely fill a thimble.) dorian acts out because he’s miserable, he’s angry that he’ll never be what his parents want, angry at both them (for setting such unachievable expectations) and himself (for never being enough, for his inherent inability to be enough). alexius can see this so clearly. alexius genuinely cares for him. whether his parents at all care for the man he’s become or just for the man they wanted him to be is debatable.

and secondly, we have this sentence:

The boy had enough cheek, even in his inebriated state, to invite me to join him.

alexius tells halward that dorian propositioned him for sex. dorian is at this point, what, 17 or 18? this is likely the first evidence halward has that dorian likes men. alexius basically outs him. subtly, but it’s there. halward knew for a long time, or at least had a suspicion. but it was in private. only admitted in alexius’s correspondence.

in 9:37, when dorian is 26, he’s caught in bed with a lord’s son and essentially taken captive by his parents. he runs away a few months later, never to return.

below are two quotes from dorian during last resort of good men:

But what was the first thing you did when your precious heir refused to play pretend for the rest of his life? You tried to change me!

He was going to do a blood ritual. Alter my mind. Make me... acceptable. I found out. I left.

“the first thing you did.” this implies that halward only truly confronts dorian about his homosexuality and moves to act after the incident with lord abrexis’s son.

as dorian says in his sex scene:

Where I come from, anything between two men… it’s about pleasure. It’s accepted, but taken no further. You learn not to hope for more. You’d be foolish to.

maybe it would have been fine behind closed doors, but it’s been made extremely public. word has spread quickly among halward’s enemies. just look at this letter:

Halward: I only wanted what was best for you!

Dorian: You wanted the best for you! For your fucking legacy! Anything for that!

when dorian says this, he’s exactly right. halward might not understand dorian, but dorian understands him. halward knew dorian slept with men for 8, 9 years before this, thanks to alexius’s letter detailing how they met. it hasn’t been an issue before. but it’s only now that it could pose a threat to halward’s reputation that halward decides it has to change. he goes back on his word, his teachings against blood magic, to protect himself, his legacy, his image. it’s disgusting. appalling.

finally, i want to address this banter between cole and dorian:

Dorian: You think that if they love you, they should understand. They shouldn't want to hurt you.

Dorian: So you feel betrayed. You say things you can't ever take back.

Cole: “Get out. You are no son of mine.”

Dorian: Yes, like that.

Cole: He wishes he hadn't meant it.

world of thedas says dorian “escaped,” “fled.” even dorian says he “found out [and] left.” but this banter, given the above context, is elucidating. dorian didn’t sneak out in the middle of the night. he confronted halward. he stood his ground. he refused to let halward change him. he had hope, even if just a sliver of it, that halward would understand, would still love him, even if he wasn’t everything his father wanted.

and for staying true to who he was, he was given rejection. wholehearted rejection. halward said that dorian was not his son, and he meant it. if dorian couldn’t behave in a way that would uphold house pavus’s perfect legacy, if he couldn’t “put on a show, marry the girl, keep everything unsavory private and locked away,” then he couldn’t be a pavus.

dorian left having tried everything. having desperately pleaded with his father to still love him for who he was. but halward never truly loved dorian. he only loved the man he hoped dorian would become, the man he tried to force him to become by throwing money and disciplinary action and strict schools at the problem because he never truly cared about what dorian wanted, the man he was entirely willing to abandon his abandon his principles to use blood magic to change dorian into.

dorian was not halward’s son, because he fought against the life he was forced into since birth. dorian was not halward’s son, because he dared to put dorian before pavus.

[halla-hunts-the-wolf]

Food for thought:

Solas altering Rook's perception, mind, and memories with just a little bit of blood magic convinces me that Halward Pavus's failed ritual would have been very successful.

[pavarios]

One of these days I'll shut up about Dorian. Today isn't that day

Dorian's relationship with his father fascinates me so much. It would have been easy to make Halward a complete monster like every Tevinter magister we meet in the first two games, and he's unquestionably a terrible person and father, but the fact that he's shown to genuinely regret what he tried to do to Dorian and Dorian still loves him and thinks of him as a good man (or at least he did until he found out about the blood magic ritual) makes his actions even more horrific and heartbreaking than if he was just portrayed as a one-dimensional homophobic villain.

You could argue that the standards for what constitutes a "good man" in Tevinter aren't very high, but I think it must have been more than "doesn't practice blood magic" and "doesn't beat his slaves" for Dorian to idolize his father the way Cole says he did. I also think it really speaks to what a big heart Dorian has that he's still able to see the good in someone who's caused him so much pain.

The first time I did "The Last Resort of Good Men," I wasn't interested in hearing anything Halward had to say for himself after he had the gall to claim the blood magic ritual was for Dorian's benefit, so I ended the conversation there, but then I watched what happens if you stay and let him apologize on YouTube, and since then I've always chosen that option (even though I kind of hate the Inquisitor telling Dorian he'll never forgive himself if he leaves; that's a fucked up thing to say after what he just told them). You don't really get the full picture of their beautiful mess of a relationship otherwise.

[posikk]

This site needs more hlaward pavus and frank spencer content

[hamnskiftning]

DAI: Halward Pavus

[elvhenfaer]

30 Days of Dorian

Prompt One: The Fool

A depiction of Halward pulling Dorian’s strings as though he were his personal puppet.

@30daysofdorian

[dragonagecompanions]

Dorian reacting to a 6 year old inquisitor absolutely destroying his fathers ego? Like they basically tell his father that he failed as a parent and that Dorian is 1000×'s the man that he is?

(Probably an inquisitor closer to ten in age, for appropriate vocabulary.)

Wisdom from the mouth of babes.

It is perhaps the first time that both men of House Pavus have been rendered mute at the same time, but as their young Inquisitor extols his virtues Dorian cannot help but be gratified. How he managed to make such an impression on their young herald he has no idea, but would not trade their admiration for the world. No one save maevaris has ever come so passionately to their defense, and not even Magister Tilani had done to so...directly.

Halward Pavus was clearly not ready for this offended tirade, and if at first he was not willing to give credance to a child the inquisitors words cannot be denied. Dorian can see some of them strike true, and that is a gift that can never be repaid.

But he is also not going to let a child fight his battles (or make themselves a target, worse yet) and so the scion of House Pavus does not let them go on for long. It is easier, though, to return them back to the guards outside the tavern and speak to his father with their ringing endorsement still in his ears and heart.

-Mod Fereldone