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Dragon Age Fan Cast : Grey Wardens
Round #1 — Match 104 of 104
Iron Bull
“He's like the big, supportive, chill uncle you always wanted.”
“bull’s personal quest is one of my favourite “dragon age makes you pick a horrible option” moments because it’s not abstract; it’s faces you know, a call you have to make fast, and bull watching you to see what kind of leader you actually are. and it feeds right back into who he is: a guy raised inside the Qun’s system, trained to be useful, trained to stay obedient, who also built a found-family merc crew that treats him like a person instead of a tool. the best part is that he doesn’t get rewritten into a saint if you’re friends with him—he stays blunt, horny, tactical, and occasionally unsettling in that “i’ve been taught to think in terms of outcomes” way. and if you don’t romance him, the fact he can end up with dorian through banter is such a perfect payoff, because it feels like the inquisition’s messy little orbit of people finding something soft in the middle of a war.”
"ok let me be vain for a moment. I want to talk about how cool his character design is. look at his face profile. what a man. i look at him and say he is THE dragon age character to me"
vs. Janeka
“i like characters who make you sit there and go “i understand why you think this will work” while your brain is also screaming.”
Who should advance?
Iron Bull
Janeka
okay but Larius was definitely being manipulated by Corypheus too, right? like Janeka is Obviously having her head filled with ideas that aren’t her’s whereas Larius is aware of the influence and rejects it but... if he was really so invested in keeping Corypheus locked away, why have Hawke undo the seals in the first place? The Wardens seem more than capable of travelling through the prison without becoming trapped, as evidenced by Malcom’s own visit and the studies the Wardens have conducted for years on end, so surely Larius could have shown them a way out without needing to undo the magic that was keeping Corypheus in. And why trust that Hawke would be capable of killing him when the Wardens have failed to do so for generations?
If Larius was truly invested in keeping Corypheus locked away from the world, unable to do harm, why help Hawke at all? Countless victims have wandered inside and died, and the Wardens did nothing to prevent it. Why not just leave Hawke to rot? Take the Key from them and hide it away or something. Considering that Larius was willing to threaten a pregnant young woman to get Malcom to reinforce the seals, it seems to add up that he’d be willing to leave that same woman’s child to die if it kept Corypheus locked away.
Unless the idea to help Hawke escape so that they could kill Corypheus on their way out wasn’t actually Larius’ idea to begin with.
A few more Grey Wardens
Stroud : Bethany : Carver / Larius : Janeka : Clarel
for that meme! "And what am I to you, Janeka?"
@mxkelsifer tagging you here since you also asked :) Last year when I was replaying da2, I decide to side with Janeka for the first time in the legacy dlc. And when I saw this dialogue option, my shipping monkey brain went: "Oh"
So ever since I saw this, I've been thinking about writing about them, and think Im the founder of this rarepair lol Im currently writing a short fic about them that's basically: "Janeka, what if we were both girls looking for a milenia old darkspawn… in an ancient ruin… and we kissed "
My dnd character Janeka who is not at all fantasy Starfire
Ser Jean-Marc Stroud’s Failure
I feel for Stroud. Out of all the ridiculous Orlesian characters we’ve been introduced to, there are few good ones that we *have* been introduced to, and he’s one. (Fiona being another.) He’s also the only chevalier I will ever like. Unlike a lot of his fatheaded brethren, he seemed to take seriously ideals like honor and not use them as props for his ego.
To illustrate: We know for a fact that Grey Wardens, though they are supposed to remain a neutral party, has never actually been so. Therefore we feel justified in making fun of Stroud for claiming the Grey Wardens can’t get involved while the Qunari are rampaging in Kirkwall. Or we roll our eyes a bit as he says that the Joining isn’t supposed to be a cure against the darkspawn taint. (My own Mahariel fucking *cackles* at that.)
But thing is, his particular background and history with the Wardens shows that these are his ideals that he upholds. He’s not just parroting rules at Hawke or the Inquisitor. These are things he believes in -- it’s like he transplanted all his “chivalric code” into the Wardens. He found another way to protect people, and he tries to do so scrupulously.
This is why the Nightmare’s taunt in the Fade is a lot more cutting than most would think. If you know nothing, or just a little bit, it comes off pretty generic, doesn’t it?
“Warden Stroud. How must it feel to devote your whole life to the Wardens, only to watch them fall? Or worse: to know that you were responsible for their destruction? When the next Blight comes, will they curse your name?”
Except that it isn’t generic at all. Consider: three times (potentially, but at least once) has Stroud failed to follow his own code, and those failures contributed significantly to the Breach and the fall of the Grey Wardens. And both failures center on Hawke.
Failure number one happens when Hawke & company hit the Deep Roads in ~9:31. Stroud and a company of Grey Wardens were somewhere nearby on their own mission -- what this mission was has never been stated -- and the failure was in not sensing the Blight of the red lyrium idol and allowing it to escape. Understand that I am phrasing it from his point of view and with the benefit of hindsight, because this is not a reasonable expectation, particularly if Hawke did not bring Anders (someone he would have more easily sensed, if possibly confused with another darkspawn, as Anders did with Stroud and the others).
It’s the discovery of the red lyrium idol and bringing it to the surface that begins to doom the Wardens -- Corypheus would still be a threat without it, but red lyrium significantly amplified his power and that of his minions (like Samson).
Failure number two is the second part of the first failure if Hawke urged their sibling to become a Grey Warden after contracting the taint in the Deep Roads. Stroud states clearly that he does not believe the Joining ritual should be used as a cure for the taint -- not only because it might not work, but because he believes that being a Grey Warden is about feeling called to undertake the duty of protecting people from the darkspawn threat.
(Aside: there are two schools of thought among the Wardens. One is that Wardens are supposed to deal with the threat of the Blight by any means necessary. This school of thought is what dominates when Clarel agrees to the creation of a demon army to hunt the Old Gods. The second school of thought is that Wardens are supposed to protect people from the Blight. These are the Wardens who try to save people in the path of darkspawn instead of letting villages burn. Stroud and Alistair and Loghain are these sorts of Wardens, and are most likely to become the leaders of one side of a Grey Warden civil war.)
Allowing Bethany or Carver to become a Warden can be part of, and leads to, the potential third failure: that of failing to see what Janeka was up to at Corypheus’s prison at the Vimmarks.
In dialogue with Hawke’s Grey Warden sibling during the beginning of the Legacy DLC, we discover that Carver or Bethany are stationed under Stroud’s command at Ansburg. (Note on the map how far north Ansburg is from Kirkwall, and you start to understand that Stroud and other Grey Wardens present in Kirkwall is a pretty big deal.) You further learn that members of the Carta had somehow snuck in to get at the Hawke sibling, particularly after Stroud refused to release the sibling to Janeka’s command.
Now, why would Stroud refuse a seemingly reasonable request from a fellow Warden to have someone transferred to her command? Unless he had suspicions about her and what she was doing, that is -- and her command at the Grey Warden prison is a pretty fraught and risky place to be stationed at. (This would be why Stroud knows about Corypheus at all, even as a senior Warden. Unless there are other Grey Warden outposts in the Free Marches that Bioware has not told us about, Ansburg and the prison in the Vimmarks near Kirkwall are it.)
Sending the Carta after the Hawke sibling was a win-win scenario for Janeka. Either the Carta would be successful in kidnapping or killing (thus still getting the blood from) the sibling, or -- and this is what happens -- Stroud relents and lets the sibling go find out what the fuck is going on along with Hawke. For all Stroud’s strictness, apparently he has a soft spot for family -- and considering his own family’s murder, it’s understandable.
Releasing the Hawke sibling to go to Hawke leads them eventually to the prison, where Corypheus is freed. Stroud would have learned everything that happened from the sibling afterward, whether they volunteered the information or he asked for a report. Stroud would have felt responsible for everything that happened because of his lapse in judgment, regardless of Hawke’s actions (though he would certainly have had Words with them about that, as well).
The Nightmare fucked with Stroud hard, y’all, because that’s what Stroud does to himself.
Sunday Snippets
tagged by @faerieavalon. Thank you. :)
Some Duncan pov from Vertigo. The only oc here is Riya, the rest are canon characters. This is a first draft, and hasn’t gone through any editing/revisions.
The first inn they stopped at was full, same with the second, but the third had rooms available. Once Riya finished haggling with the innkeeper, a voice boomed from across the common room, “RYIA!”
The room grew quiet, anxious. While the group of wardens was previously regarded under discreet, hooded eyes, respectful to avoid staring, now every eye gawked openly. The energy of the room shifted, where it was once a quiet drone of voices over clattering of dishes, but with that one word, silence fell over the room, patrons shifting either to run or join the prospect of melee. Duncan took all of this in with a wary eye, hands twitching to reach for his axes.
“Grigor.” The Orth woman drolled with an annoyed roll of her eyes.
Rising to his full height, he was younger than her by two decades; hair black as pitch, and dark complexioned, with pale geometric lines decorating his chin and jaw. He was burly, and looked like he lifted logs, or here in the Anderfels, stones, for fun.
“You are still scrawny woman.” Marching forward, Grigor itched his hand near his sword.
Duncan reached for his weapons, Riordan unsheathed his daggers, both mages behind him shifted when the energy edged closer to violence.
“You are still ugly.”
The pair stared at one another, she shorter by a head, but she had shifted her stance, weight shifted to the balls of her feet. Every person in the common room seemed to hold their collective breathe, waiting.
Tagging whoever wants to do this. It’s getting late.
