15 for Lynnie/Alistair, 1 and 2 for Saul and Tali?
15. Does their view of themselves differ from their partner’s view?
A little, yes. Lynnie wasn’t confident in her abilities as a mage because she didn’t think she’d put enough effort into being well-rounded in her training - she quickly learned to be a good fighter, but other areas such as healing were lacking and she thought she might be letting her party down somehow. (She felt especially guilty because this lopsided focus started while she still lived in Kinloch Hold, where she should have been more diligent.) Even as they traveled, she put more emphasis on building her physical strength rather than her magical ability. Alistair, on the other hand, thought she was impressive from the beginning and never thought she was lacking in anything.
For Lynnie’s part, she doesn’t agree with Alistair that he wouldn’t make a good leader. It really surprised her when he chose to defer to her after Duncan’s death. Privately, she thought he would make an excellent king, but she never tried to convince him to put himself forward. He’d told her in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t what he wanted, and she did her best to help him make his own choices.
Both of them have a higher opinion of each other than they do of themselves, apparently. :)
1. What drew your character to their LI and vice versa?
Saul just really liked being around Tali when he first met her. She was intelligent, steady, and surprisingly snarky, especially once she’d settled in on the Normandy and gotten to know the crew. He’d met his share of quarians but didn’t know them very well, so he was curious to hear about her life growing up. For Tali’s part, she noticed that Saul treated her with respect (being called “suit rat” her first time on the Citadel wasn’t exactly unexpected, but felt worse than she thought it would), and she saw that he dealt with everyone the same way, even when he had to deal with conflict. Saul’s engineering background made it easy for them to bond over tech nerdery. Saul also was humble about it; if Tali pointed out there was a better way to do something, he’d give her a chance to show him, and he was glad to learn from her. In short, they each found the other very likeable, and their personalities just clicked. There wasn’t any romantic attraction on either side during ME1, but Chakwas suspected that their could be, given time. (She was right.)
2. What was the first moment that they knew they were in love with their LI?
Right in the middle of Tali’s trial. Saul had been having a lot of strong feelings for Tali ever since she’d joined him after Haestrom, but it hadn’t sunk in what it meant: There was profound relief that he had another person on the SR2 that he could trust completely and happiness that he had one of his best friends with him again. His admiration for her bravery and intelligence had grown while she’d filled him in on what she’d been up to over the past two years. And he’d been all kinds of frustrated and grieved and angry on her behalf, watching her deal with the fallout from Rael’Zorah’s actions. Telling the admiralty board that none of them even cared about Tali, he realized that a small voice inside his head was adding the words “like I do”...and then he was very glad he was wearing a breather helmet and nobody could see his face, because what exactly do I mean by that? Saul, this is really not the time...
And then, leaving, Tali told him “It’s fun watching you shout” and she gave his arm a teasing little tap with the back of her hand, but just the little nudge made him feel like he was going to fall over, and that’s when he knew it was all over for him. :)
