#samson meta

[swindlefingrs]

But Samson in DA2 has real depression and apathy for life (he lost the meaning of life when he was expelled from the order). Everything really depends on him. The Hawke can even support him, saying that he can also succeed if he tries, but Samson answers her too gloomily. Although, in the end, he was still able to find strength and escape from poverty (he even visits the brothel) . So it depends on the person, and not just on the cruel poverty system.

You could think that, but you’d be wrong.

The idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps to escape poverty is a classist concept that has been proven wrong time and time and time again:

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-pulling-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps-myth-explained

https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/debunking-bootstraps-myth/

https://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/no--you-can-t-just--bootstrap--yourself-out-of-poverty-172104522.html

People feel comfortable prying into the lives of the poor to judge and blame them for their own situation – and often, that’s because people see poverty as a punishment, and they see the poor as people who are punished for just not trying hard enough.

[source]

It’s also an assumption to say he lost all meaning in his life after being expelled from the Order. He lost his income, a support system, safe shelter, clean water and food, and access to a very expensive, very powerful substance that was killing him slowly while he was taking it and killing him quickly while he wasn’t able to take it. 

He lost his ability to support himself, he didn’t lose the meaning in his life. Samson never talks about his faith, he talks about the Chantry as an institution and the Templars as members and victims of that institution.

During DA2, Samson is doing the best he can with the resources he has, all while managing to exist under debilitating physical and mental pain from being denied access to lyrium.

Also, it’s a fundamental character misreading to say Raleigh Samson is apathetic. He’s anything but apathetic. An apathetic person wouldn’t work with ship’s captains to get runaway mages out of Kirkwall (despite not knowing one of those captains having a contract with Tevinter slavers under the guise of a mage getting passage for “free”). An apathetic person would not stick around Kirkwall taking care of the Tranquil mages after the Gallows explodes. An apathetic person wouldn’t be livid at the idea of being set loose in the woods to attack innocent people while the red lyrium finally mutates him. An apathetic person wouldn’t take up the use of red lyrium in order to destroy the Chantry as an institution so that it can’t create more templars.

I’m not sure what you’re angling for but Samson’s villainous flaws don’t involve being poor, addicted, or depressed. Samson isn’t a villain in DA2, he makes his choice to join Corypheus between DA2 and DAI. 

His flaws are taking his own sense of dread about dying to lack of lyrium and applying it to all templars now that they’ve left the Chantry (his compassion twisted into a weapon which we’ve talked about before), growing red lyrium in kidnapped villagers, and working with an evil ancient Tevinter magister who wants to end the world.

I’m also not going to be answering any further questions. I urge you to use your own blog to write your thoughts and theories out instead of using my inbox.

[swindlefingrs]

What do you think, who will be supported by the Inquisition commander Samson as allies? Mages or Templars? How will he behave? How is Cullen? Or more calmly?

Commander Samson could still fill the same narrative role and want the Inquisitor to visit the Templars first, imo.

Remember, at least within the context of the game, the Inquisitor is only asked to either go talk to the mages or to check-in on the templars first - just to see wtf is going on. We aren’t told we’re actually siding with one group or another at that point. 

I could see Commander Samson wanting to check in with the templars because he’s more concerned about them since they’ve been cut off from their lyrium supply, thinks they’d be easier to recruit, or that their ability to negate magic would be more helpful - we just leave off the fear of mages that Cullen displays during that conversation.

[swindlefingrs]

1. Cassandra could meet Samson in The Hanged Man, listen to what he thinks about the situation in Kirkwall, and that he wants to help, but does not know how. And Kassandra will give him this opportunity, taking with him to create the Inquisition. Samson could become a gold commander in the service of the Inquisition. It would be a wonderful story about how a good person crawls out of the mud into which bad people have thrown him, and gets what he deserves. But Bioware decided differently. 😭

2. The commander of the Inquisition could be a really interesting and multifaceted character (I'm talking about Samson), but Bioware gave us a crookedly written and remade Cullen (who suddenly became Mr. FanService in DAI). Cullen is a good character, but it looks like Bioware in DAI was trying to remake him into Samson. For example, Cole says that Cullen does not forget that magicians are people. But Samson thinks so, not Cullen. Cullen generally said the opposite in DA2.

This is a great conversation that went around a few times back when the game came out. You can find content about the Wolf of Skyhold, named by @momochanners, that the fandom had a lot of fun with.

I still personally believe that Cullen’s story should’ve been about surviving trauma (from Kinloch Hold) and not about addiction.

[swindlefingrs]

In some letters, does Samson call himself "lord" (not even sir)? Is it just for fun? Or is he really a nobleman?

Samson is not a nobleman, as far as we know. He’s just a regular Free Marcher who enjoys fish and egg pie.

The only letter we find that’s been signed “Lord Samson” is to the Lord Seeker regarding Seekers being resistant to red lyrium so he’s in charge of them now. 

Thing is, though, that the Lord Seeker is actually an envy demon, so I’m assuming that sign off is Samson’s way of taking the piss out of the “Lord Seeker”.

[swindlefingrs]

What do you think Samson was like at school (Templar training)? Was he the one who tried very hard in the classroom and did every homework? Or the one who skipped classes and was just having fun? Was he a quiet boy? Or was he a bully?

He could’ve been any of these things! He’s in his late 40s as we meet him in DAI, people can grow and change a lot over that time. Maybe for a few years as a kid he was a bully, maybe he was bullied, maybe he was very studious, maybe he grew into his studies as he got older! Maybe he had hard sitting still, maybe he had a hard time making friends, maybe he had many friends, maybe he found reading difficult for a few years!

Personally, he strikes me as someone who wasn’t very studious and a bit of a scrapper. I do think he was a bully for a bit of his kidhood and learned better. He was a charming kid, and we learn from Paper & Steel that his troops love him, so I think he still is charismatic when he wants to be.

The world’s our oyster, friendo. That’s the beauty of fandom in this regard.

[swindlefingrs]

What if Samson was affected by the death of Knight-Commander Guylian? I am talking about the fact that he could be depressed due to the death of Guylian, and therefore he had no motivation to fight in DA2 for a better life. We do not know what their relationship was, but Guilian gave Samson his shield. Perhaps he saw potential in Samson and supported him in every possible way. But Meredith was afraid of competition, so she decided to find a reason to expel Samson from the order...

Thankfully we already know why Meredith expelled Samson from the order: she caught him passing letters for Maddox the mage to his girlfriend. Samson was convicted of fraternizing with the mages and Meredith expelled him.

There’s two questions in here in your message:

Was Samson greatly affected by Guylian’s murder?

Was Samson responsible for his own poverty?

The idea that Samson is “too depressed to fight for a better life” holds the individual responsible for their survival under systematic oppression, which is how oppressive systems stay in place. It also doesn’t account for how brutal the cycle of poverty is in general, how brutal it must be in a universe that has no social services to help those in need, and how brutal the addiction to lyrium is.

Only templars who’ve retired in good standing are allowed by the Chantry to receive lyrium which means Samson has to pay more money, that he doesn’t have because he can’t work because he’s unable to manage the debilitating physical and mental affects of lyrium withdrawal, for black market lyrium from the dwarves who also sell it to the Chantry. We also know that Samson needs more lyrium than most Templars, so he has to pay more money for more lyrium at black market prices.

Don’t forget that Cullen is, so far, the only Templar to have stopped taking lyrium and lived. All other templars have died. Which, I’m betting, suits the Chantry just fine. This is why Cassandra calls this addiction a “lyrium leash”.

Was Samson affected by Guylain’s murder? Emotionally? We don’t know - he doesn’t bring up Guylain’s murder specifically, just that the knight commander personally gave him his sun shield. I’d imagine having the commander of your order personally rewarding you with something is a point of pride. Pride could be difficult for him to come by as he begs for coin in Lowtown, and it could be a way he reminds himself and other people that he does, in fact, have value.

Guylain’s murder marked a drastic change in the Gallows, though - Meredith comes to power and the Templar’s grip on the mages tightens until they all bleed.

[swindlefingrs]

Hello! Sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you have any headcanons about Samson's childhood or how he came to join the Templars? Hope you have a wonderful day! (Shy anon is shy)

Aw hello shy Nonny <33 Asks never bother me! I’m usually surprised when I get one, and then suuuuper excited when it’s not a bot asking me to click on some fucking spam links.

I have to admit that I don’t really have a childhood headcanon fleshed out because imagining a child with Samson’s future ahead of him sort of… breaks my heart into a million fucking pieces. Like… I try, but then I just imagine him as a little dark-haired, gangly kid named Raleigh who wakes up from a nightmare in the middle of the night and just wants a hug from his mom or dad - and then imagine all the times he lay in the gutter in Lowtown, half-dead from lyrium withdrawals, and just wished his mom or dad was there to save him.

At one point he was just a sweet kid, who was probably a charmer, and maybe a little bratty. He might have had parents that loved him a whole lot, and younger siblings who might have looked up to him, or older siblings that tried to keep him out of trouble, and that little boy doesn’t deserve the future that waits for him. 

I do think he joined the Order for altruistic reasons. I do think he joined to help, because it’d be a good, steady job doing good work. The Templars aren’t portrayed to the general population as the brutal police force they basically are. The general population sees them as heroes with a sacred duty, making sure mages are safe from themselves, and that people are safe from mages. That’s the fairytale that they’re fed. We have Templar Recruit Keran in DA2 who joined to do good and keep his sister fed and safe, and I tend to think most templars join for the same reason. I think templars who are given over as babies/children and those who join from noble families are in the minority.

I imagine that Samson and Cullen joined for about the same reasons, but each one came to a crossroads based on their individual experiences. Each one was presented with the knowledge that the Order isn’t what was advertised. At this crossroads every templar has to pick: the humanity of mages or the righteousness of the Order. Samson chose the humanity of the mages and abandoned the righteousness of the Order. Cullen abandoned the humanity of the mages and chose the righteousness of the Order.

Neither one of the choices is correct, both are punished in their own ways for making their decisions. Samson is abandoned by the Order and left to physically die. Cullen is further removed from humanity and left to die a spiritual death.

I might sit down with some liquid courage and attempt to pin down my ideas of his childhood at some point, but today is not that day. My mom was visiting me this weekend and I said goodbye last night so I’m just kind of a full-grown mess today.

I really appreciate you sending in this message. I hope you’ll share with us your own headcanons about Samson’s childhood and reasons for joining the Order!

[swindlefingrs]

Was there a reason Samson's DAI armour was tailored to look like a Kirkwall guard captain's?

Unfortunately there’s no specific reason why that I can find in-game, Paper & Steel, or WoT2.

Maybe the red lyrium couldn’t be attached to the standard templar armor?

Maybe Samson didn’t want to wear templar armor, or he needed to look different than a standard templar so his troops could spot him on the battlefield (this is sort of what I’m leaning towards)?

Maybe Maddox was more adept at forging swords and was relegated to that task while working in the Gallows and knowing how to make Kirkwall guard armor was something he learned from his parents, so he had to fall back on that armor style when he was tasked with creating the red lyrium armor?

Maybe one of the ways the Circle earned money was from creating city guard armor and Maddox was more skilled at crafting that armor style?

Your guess is as good as mine, Nonny! Anyone else have any ideas why?