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sometimes i seriously wish i could draw bc it is a fucking tragedy that i’ve never seen any art of Andraste, in all her glory, painted blue with her tiddies out

#don't give me this chantry bs of a demure gentle queen in a long gown and maybe a breastplate if you're lucky #andraste was out there screaming and howling no clothes covered in paint #also she was definitely a mage #look in your heart you know i'm right #andraste

leliwardens

i do genuinely appreciate the fact that meredith as a visibly much older woman character that has 0 motivations to anything related to "lost" youth or younger women or god forbid some sort of love entanglement with a man and instead her character motivation and arc proves that fascism can also be a women-dominated field! 👍

telumendils

his hawke brainrot is truly unmatched...

sunsetzer

Obviously Dragon Age as a series has a few things fall distinctly into the genre of horror (especially the Blight, even the lighter tone Veilguard had overall didn't lessen how scary it actually is as a concept) but I've made it a point to really pay attention to the NPCs in the Gallows this playthrough and damn if DA2 doesn't have some solid psychological horror going on with the mage-templar stuff.

Especially if you're playing Hawke as a mage, the way it's repeatedly driven into the player in act 1 that Hawke could wake up in the Gallows because they're a poor refugee and also not every templar has a price, some really just love to make mages suffer (even though you never do get caught; I really wish there'd been an instance where Hawke had to break out of the Gallows like the Warden and Alistair breaking out of prison in DAO) and if you go to the Gallows and like... listen to the mage NPCs idle dialogue, look at the way some of them that are allowed to roam the courtyard are cowering, listen to the monotone voice of the Tranquil merchant standing beside Solivitus, the templars' remarks about the mages not even being people, it's just so incredibly fucked up that it baffles me how there's even a question of whether or not Anders was right. Even some of what he says in banter with your other companions about the Circle is genuinely insane (what do you mean you've been fortunate, you just told Sebastian you were assaulted by the templars at Kinloch??? You were fortunate that you escaped??).

Tranquility is so genuinely horrifying as a concept, too. Anders' entire recruitment quest being about his own lover being made Tranquil as punishment for the crime of just writing to him, Alain mentioning that Karras has been in his chambers and threatens to have him branded if he tells anyone, watching Alrik tell a girl that she'll do whatever he wants her to when he makes her Tranquil, that one woman in act 2 who Alrik made Tranquil before he died having a conversation with her distraught lover about how she belongs to Ser Alrik now, the fact that slowly over the course of the game there actually are more Tranquil in the Gallows; I feel like it's one of the darkest things I've seen in a non-horror RPG. You get taken away from your friends and family forever if you're born with magic, and if you fail the test you aren't prepared for that they randomly spring on you to see if you can resist a demon you're executed, and even if you successfully pass that, if you make one wrong move or even if the templars just don't like you, you get fucking lobotomized and have no agency over anything that is done to you ever again.

You mean to tell me that people played this game, saw this shit, and still thought the Circles were a valid solution akin to real life gun control? Thought that Anders overreacted and the system should have just been allowed to stay that way because mages are dangerous? Hello?? Nani??? The fuck??????

stonesense

sophia dryden’s so compelling i wish the warden’s keep dlc was a little better at showing that off

stonesense

sophia was an imprisoned rival for the fereldan throne (you can do this to anora!) who was forced to join the grey wardens rather than be executed in order to appease her supporters (you can do this to loghain!) who made an attempt for the throne despite being a grey warden (you can do this to alistair!) and who thus got the grey wardens exiled for 200 years (the entire background for the main plot of the game, the reason for the wardens’ small numbers in ferelden/at ostagar compared to their numbers in orlais, and thus the backdrop to loghain’s mistrust). she’s such an efficient little microcosm of the foundational dragon age theme that your choices will determine the future but you won’t be able to control their impact or how they and you are remembered, and that if that’s true, then what ends justify what means? what risks is your character willing to take, just like sophia’s use of blood magic and her failed gamble with the wardens which is the whole reason you’re in this situation? are they as sure of their goal as sophia was of her lost cause that nobody now even remembers to mourn? and i wish she loomed larger in people’s perceptions of the wardens and ferelden and dragon age in general bc i think she is neat <3

thewardenisonthecase

and i do wish we could explore more the thing between apostates and circle mages because its the sort of crunchy thing where yes they're both on the same side when it comes to have suffered oppression your whole life due to being a mage but also the possible resentment from one to the other.

because on one hand, a circle mage seeing an apostate, who has more freedom than they've ever had in their life, who got to see the world and not be confined, who potentially got to keep their family.

but on the other hand, an apostate has to basically live a life of hiding. they cant show they magic, they cant raise suspicions, they cant stay in one place long and the looming fear of templars always at their back. and like, its not like the apostates in the series super duper want to go to the circle (they avoid it for a reason) but its that thing of. in the circle, they could train their magic without having to worry someone might see it, being able to speak to other mages.

(obviously, a taking a more like. southern thedas-human-approach to this line of thinking because for groups like the qunari, the dalish, the avvar and rivainis, the context in which they live in and how their societies treat mages and how andrastian thedosian society treats them also has a large hand at play here)

like i dont know. i just think a lot about anders (circle mage) telling mage hawke how lucky they were that they got to have a family. but from hawke's perspective, how lucky is that, since their and their families lives has been marked by not being able to settle down because of being apostates? but on the other hand, you can also have hawke question how bad the circle can be to anders and him telling straight about the true horrors of it. crunchy.

dalishious

Hawke standing off to the side like 🥰

ikarons

like anders is Angry but in da2 i think it’s kind of a stretch to call him Vengeful… he rly does not spend a lot of time on the idea of paying back the suffering or killing templars or clergy Because They Deserve It per se. even blowing up the chantry is not motivated by his desire to hurt the church it’s motivated by his belief that the only way to catalyse real change for the mages is to take away the possibility of everything just quietly carrying on As Before while mages die. how is that vengeance!

asharaks

#like and this is a separate question from whether he’s right or wrong imo#the two things are not related#but it is clear that bioware thinks they are… and is essentially saying.#vengeance is when justice is violent and mad and scary#which is Bad. because it’s violent and bad and scary#and that’s just like. not correct right#vengeance is when someone hurts you and you Hurt Them Back Specifically For Hurting You#which anders shows very little interest in all things considered#he doesn’t want to go around aimlessly hitting templars he wants to free the mages#he is just also willing to consider that hitting templars might be a necessary step to getting there#also blowing up churches. but again the carnage is not really the point to him it is a Tool

adding your tags. bc yeah he's literally Not hunting down templars. when he kills them it is in the service of protecting specific mages they are victimising he at no point has hawke just like. murdering templars who are minding their business. he's not doing vengeance!

andrasteschosen

happy 15 years of anders discourse everyone

adansey

sebastian vael:

adansey

People are tagging this with various dragon age characters which I respect but also need people to know this is entirely literal

sapphim

something incredibly funny about dragon age's wholly unexamined assertion that life does not begin at conception

sapphim

Riordan: Tell me, have you ever wondered why the Grey Wardens are needed to defeat the darkspawn? Riordan: The archdemon may be slain as any other darkspawn, but should any other than a Grey Warden do the slaying, it will not be enough. Riordan: The essence of the beast will pass through the taint to the nearest darkspawn and will be reborn anew in that body. The dragon is thus all but immortal. Riordan: But if the archdemon is slain by a Grey Warden… its essence travels into the Grey Warden, instead. Warden: And… what happens to the Grey Warden? Riordan: A darkspawn is an empty, soulless vessel, but a Grey Warden is not. The essence of the archdemon is destroyed… and so is the Grey Warden. Morrigan: What I propose is this: lay with me. Here, tonight. And from our joining, a child will be conceived. Morrigan: The child will bear the taint, and when the archdemon is slain, its essence will seek the child like a beacon. Morrigan: At this early stage, the child can absorb that essence and not perish. The archdemon is still destroyed, with no Grey Warden dying in the process. Warden: So the child becomes a darkspawn? Morrigan: Not at all. It will become something different: a child born with the soul of an Old God.

success of the dark ritual is contingent upon the empirical observation that a fetus is not ensouled immediately upon conception but at some later unspecified point. don't worry about it.

evilvarric666-archive

Also the "Morrigan talks to Alistair directly" scenario leads to the possibilty of them just, doing the ritual and never telling the warden about it, which is unfortunately super funny to me.

evilvarric666-archive

Warden, covered in Archdemon blood: hey why am I not like, dying.

Alistair: damn bestie that's crazy. No clue why that would be happening haha

Warden: where's Morrigan.

Alistair: who's Morrigan.

thewardenisonthecase

It’s the fact that. Part of Alistair’s emotional arc is that he cant fucking let go of this One Revenge. He can’t let it go so bad he fully abandons his duties as a warden if you let Loghain live(his duty to end the blight that is). Like. This man spends the whole entire game telling us how much the wardens mean to him, how they saved their life, and he is willing to forgo the most basic warden duty of seeing a blight through. Because he can’t let go of his need for revenge and mind you, receiving Loghain is ABSOLUTELY what the wardens would do but Alistair refuses to see that.

And idk man. It’s interesting. Alistair is NOT a paragon of virtue, he is not 100% good all of the time and ignoring his less then great traits only serves to flatten the character

stonesense

isabela be real with me did you fuck my sister

wyllzel

"Divine Justinia takes the situation here very seriously. She believes it is the worst threat to Thedas since the Qunari invaded." ↳ FAITH

apostaterevolutionary

When your friend who’s playing DA2 for the first time starts being like ‘hm maybe I’m missing something or poking holes but the Circles just don’t make sense? How does this system help anyone?’

And I’m just sitting there like