one of my favorite ruminations on this is that he feels guilty and undeserving to an extent. but also that he can only, truly, embrace and be one thing.
i interpret this as he doesn’t allow himself to feel bad or guilty for long because he thinks he doesn’t deserve to. he chose to leave and in another banter he states he didn’t fully realize what that would the consequences of that would be. what it’d entail and how it’d feel. so no, he doesn’t allow himself to grieve his lost life. that one famous quote or smth ‘my guilt will not purify me.’ it won’t make him feel better either. he shouldn’t GET to feel better. (in his head) 
davrin is also an all or nothing person. when he commits he commits. he thinks he’s only allowed to be one thing, dalish or grey warden. his personal quest reflects this. do the griffins become protectors of arlathan or return to the wardens? they can only be one so chose. and of course he only thinks he’s able to be one thing. he’s spent his life ‘honing himself like a blade to combat the world’s darkest evils’ a sacrifice cannot be anything other than a sacrifice.
kinda got rambly at the end my apolo-cheese 😔 i wholeheartedly agree that he doesn’t use his last name because he’s distancing himself. he said he knows he is both dalish and warden but matters of the heart and head are oft more complicated than we’re able to perceive. and communicate.
Finished Dragon Age: The Veilguard and had to draw Davrin, it's just a quick sketch but hopefully i'll make something more in the future. i've been wanting a Grey Warden companion without any gimmick for a long time and he's exactly the kind of knight i wanted, i love what they've done with him and i could talk about him for hours
Davrin: (Hums)
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: What?
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: You don't like my humming? You think you can do better?
Assan: (Squawk)(Squawk)(Squawk)
Davrin: I'm still waiting.
Assan: (Anxious squawk.)
Davrin: I know, I know. It's not the same as the aerie.
Assan: (Anxious squawk.)
Davrin: Don't worry. We'll adjust.
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: If you're asking for food, the answer is no.
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: Still no.
Assan: (Insistent squawk!)
Davrin: Hey, what did I say about being rude?
Assan: (Quiet squawk)
Davrin: Good boy.
Davrin: It's called "turlum." We move as one.
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: I don't know how. But… we'll get there.
Assan: (Sad squawk)
Davrin: What's the matter, boy?
Assan: (Sad squawk)
Davrin: Feeling down? You miss your brothers and sisters?
Assan: (Sad squawk)
Davrin: Don't worry. I promise you'll see them again.
Davrin: You did real good against the Gloom Howler, boy.
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: Just be careful. Still a lot to learn. But you're getting there.
Bellara: Davrin, have you seen a Calcerum crystal lying around?
Davrin: No, sorry.
Bellara: I swear I saw it on my table.
Davrin: What'd you do after that?
Bellara: Well, Assan wandered in.
Davrin: There's your problem. Griffons like shiny baubles.
Bellara: He stole my crystal?
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: More like "borrowed" it. And then probably buried it.
Bellara: Okay, now I think Assan took a runestone. I can't find it anywhere.
Davrin: Assan? Did you steal Bellara's stuff?
Assan: (Defiant squawk)
Davrin: Assan…
Assan: (Defiant squawk)
Davrin: Assan…
Assan: (Weak squawk)
Davrin: Assan.
Assan: (Whimpering squawk)
Davrin: Good boy. Always be honest.
Bellara: Thanks for that. But where's my runestone?
Davrin: Oh, probably buried in a forest somewhere.
Bellara: Davrin—
Davrin: Let me guess: Assan took something of yours.
Bellara: No, he brought it back! My runestone. I found it sitting on my table.
Davrin: Yeah?
Bellara: Even better, there were two more with it.
Davrin: Did you do that, Assan?
Assan: (Friendly squawk)
Davrin: Yeah? Good boy.
Bellara: Really good boy. He paid it back with interest.
Emmrich: One squawk for "yes," two for "no."
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: You don't really think that'll work.
Emmrich: We can't afford to take anything for granted about them, Davrin.
Emmrich: Let us try again, Assan. One for "yes." Do you understand?
Assan: (Squawk)
Emmrich: Ah-ha!
Davrin: Hold on. Assan, is the sky made of chocolate?
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: Does water taste like pumpkin?
Assan: (Squawk)
Emmrich: Ah.
Davrin: Sorry. He just likes to hear himself talk.
Emmrich: It worked so well with Manfred.
Harding: Ew.
Davrin: What?
Harding: The, uh, smell.
Davrin: Yeah. Ser Squawks-A-Lot over here doesn't always remember his potty training.
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: Got any flowers that might cover the scent?
Harding: I'll see what I can do.
Harding: Does it have to be a truffle?
Davrin: Assan?
Assan: (Squawk!) (Squawk!)
Davrin: He says yes.
Harding: Okay, but just for you, boy.
Assan: (Excited squawk)
Harding: I like what you've done with the room.
Davrin: Suits me well enough.
Harding: I was talking to Assan.
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: Oh.
Harding: Such a pretty boy!
Assan: (Excited squawk)
Harding: So nice of you to let Davrin move in with you!
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: You can go now, Harding.
Harding: Well, it smells a little better in here now.
Davrin: Thanks for those flowers. They cover the scent.
Harding: (Sniffs the air) Not well enough.
Davrin: Because Ser Squawks-A-Lot over there eats them.
Assan: (Satisfied squawk)
Harding: Oh, dear.
Davrin: Got any flowers that smell nice but taste bad?
Harding: I'm on it.
Lucanis: This room is an assassin's dream. No defenses. Nothing to stop me from sneaking in for the kill.
Davrin: Except him.
Assan: (Suspicious squawk)
Davrin: An eagle vs. a Crow? My bet's on the eagle.
Lucanis: I know where the truffles are kept in the pantry.
Davrin: You wouldn't.
Lucanis: Maybe Assan and Spite should have a playdate.
Davrin: Assan would tear him apart.
Lucanis: How? Spite's not exactly physical.
Davrin: Assan would find a way.
Assan: (Squawk)
Davrin: He'd squawk him to death.
Neve: Aren't you a pretty boy?
Assan: (Happy squawk)
Neve: (Laughs) Yes, you are.
Assan: (Happy squawk)
Davrin: Assan, you can stop flirting now. You won her over.
Assan: (Squawk)
Neve: Of course you did. Who's a good boy?
Assan: (Happy squawk)
Neve: What do you know about Assan's brothers and sisters?
Davrin: Well, there's Thunder. And Beaktooth. And Stormwing.
Neve: That's three.
Davrin: Yeah, and then the other nine… it's a blur. Lots of feathers. I couldn't keep track of them all.
(The Profane and The Lost isn't complete)
Neve: Poor Assan. You miss your family?
Assan: (Sad squawk)
Neve: We'll keep looking.
(The Profane and The Lost is complete)
Neve: At least they're safe.
Davrin: And the Wardens' problem now. A dozen mouths to feed.
Davrin: And Eldrin's problem now. A dozen mouths to feed.
Neve: Hey Assan. What do you think? Should I get some leads on your favorite truffles?
Assan: (Happy squawk)
The lines below are cut. They were supposed to trigger after the final battle and if the player choose Davrin to lead distraction team. Previously, Assan could have survived.
Bellara: Assan. I… tried to whittle this. I'm not very good, but I thought, maybe… you'd like it?
Assan: (Happy squawk)
Emmrich: I suppose it's time you had another excursion.
Emmrich: Perhaps the Necropolis? No. Davrin would want you exploring the wilds.
Emmrich: Harding and I will take you a little later.
Assan: (Happy squawk)
Harding: My ma always says we never really lose the people we love. We carry them with us.
Harding: You'll remember everything he taught you. All the faith he had in you. All of his hopes. And he'll be with you.
Assan: (Squawk)
ya know what, I’m imaging post game, stories of the Veilguard are told around campfires and at bedtime, by bards, and anywhere else they can fit in at. I’m picturing Zen and Davrin in shades of orange and brown and blue (+ earth and fall tones) coming back from various scouting missions or doing foundational work to clear a path for the other veil jumpers, or checking in Lavendel, or sparing with new recruits from either faction, and just the excitement (but also I’d be ogling let’s be real) because they’re there, and in the flesh, and still in contact with their team turned friends turned family (but also I’m trying to watch them spar each other, and get good seats so I need the crowd to move).
I think they both get teased from their specific home factions - because the (™️) wife guy Antoine and Evka find a bunch of amusing things to say about Davrin (Antoine has been waiting for this because now they’re both about to gush over their partners), and Strife thinks that seeing Zen content and happy is well earned but also comical in the way that you’re witnessing like your niece with a boyfriend/partner vibe (forget the fact that she saved the world)
Can I say something? I feel like for a lot of people who hated the game and found it lackluster, it's because there's less straight white men to obssess about. People will slurp up any media and love it as long as there's plenty of straight white men, but because most of the companions in DATV aren't people are having a harder time getting attached but not many people are ready to look inwards about it
Thanks for the submission, anon. Was surprised to get this--but appreciate you trust me enough to speak on it.
To a large extent, I do agree. For a lot of Western/Euro focused media, it's heavily skewed towards white audiences. This has been since day one. Photography and videography were intended for the entertainment of white people. People of Color had to fight to be allowed on screen, most studios opting to cast a white person to play the role of someone...non-white. It was easier, because that was more palatable than the real thing.
Why cast an Indigenous person for a role, when you can paint a rugged white man red and call it a day?
DAV is the first one of the series where white people are the minority when it comes to the companions. The only ones being Emmrich and Harding. The rest, are non-white (and yes, I know Taash is a qunari, but we all know they are not white coded at ALL.)
Because I don't want to get too deep in the weeds about this-- but we so often see the pushback when a PoC (let's say Black, because that's my personal experience) character gets any attention. We see it with BG3. We see it with the new Assassin's Creed. We see it with Spiderman. If you want to go even further back, you can see it with the indie game 'Virginia' which just has a Black woman as its protag (people got really mad about that).
A lot of white people are really uncomfortable knowing the reason why they don't relate to other cultures, its because they don't care to seek it out and learn. A lot of white people have only other white people as friends and community. White people are used to being the majority a lot of the time. They're comfortable in that. Attempting to change that means its a lot of unpleasant self reflection. It means losing that power. That safety.
Many people in my neighborhood have BLM signs, but will cross the street when they see me walking by.
When they are NOT the majority, insecurity about "Oh no, I'm going to be called racist because I decided to say 'what up my homie' to the one Black person at the office!" shines through. It's about perception of being a good person, not always putting it into practice. Most PoC aren't going to let you slide. Other white people will.
You can't always separate the game from your own personal biases. It's YOU playing the game. It's YOU romancing first the characters YOU find most appealing. It is what it is. The whole point of media is to bring out feelings in us that we wouldn't have had before.
With video games, there is a lot of cognitive dissonance. You don't have to say you don't find Black men attractive and that trauma from your dad calling every Black kid in your neighborhood the N-Word is speaking for you-- you can just say you don't like Davrin's arc (oh, but love his labor in taking care of Assan). You can just say "I don't like his hair, it's unrealistic (yes, this was an actual post on reddit). You can say he was hollow. People won't push back. The real reason may be you don't know how to see non-white men as human. Easier to blame it on the fact he doesn't wear shoes or some shit.
Side note, I was called the n-word with the hard R last week because I don't like Solas (as a villain, he's great--but he's not a good person) Because I have an issue with how fandom treats its non-white peers. I didn't center a white body and was called a slur over it.
Anyway, before this becomes a whole thing-- yeah, self reflection is hard. I get that. I also have biases as a black queer woman I have to willingly navigate. Racism is a LOT to unpack and white people are allowed to live their entire lives without doing so.
Video games are the tip to what is a much bigger iceberg.
More on Veil Jumper Rook, or well Veil Jumpers in general, but given the 10 years between DA:I and DA:V how many people do you think have heard of the Jumpers? Cause they mostly operate in Arlathan forest right? So like, how many elves go to join Solas, don't get his vision and turn to the Veil Jumpers for help?
IDK I feel like it'd be nice to have a little friction between Factions some more. Cause the Lord's of Fortune are kinda established Pirate Gang, and the Grey Warden's and Antivan Crows are like Old Money organizations, whereas the Shadow Dragons are a somewhat recent addition in comparison (I'd say maybe before Trespasser?). And the Mourn Watch....who knows what pies the Mourn Watch has their fingers in.
This is my bias speaking, but I feel like being a Veil Jumper should rub people the wrong way a little bit, because there's been a little too much tampering with the Veil in the past decade for everyone's taste.
It would be nice if the game explored that angle, but given the dev time constraints and the general 'we give up on these world state implementations' from the devs and likely EA as well we'll never know. As it stands the Veil Jumpers were already a fledgling organization with a common goal via the comics and Faction blurb. And IDK, it strikes me a bit wrong for ALL elves, even Veil Jumpers to just be like "yeah our gods are evil :/", and not, "our gods contain multitudes, this is humility unlike the shemlen :)"
My point still stands, we're interacting with the Veil in a substandard way, and also they're mostly Elves, i don't wanna feel microaggressions as much as a the next gal, being that I am a POC, but I highly doubt the Veil Jumpers openly and brazenly interacting with Elven artifacts and interacting with and restoring the Veil is going to be considered "good" let alone "helpful". The Breach was bad, and Solas makes it a point if you're an Elven Inqy when he takes you aside after Haven, to mention that the Breach was opened by an Elven Artifact, and the Inqy says, "oh yay another thing for shemlen to attack us for >:/"
Like no one knows that fact, that ancient elves fucked around and found and the rest of us are continuing to find out, but outside of Davrin making very poignant commentary of, "we can't tell anyone, elves already have it bad enough" stands as the only commentary on how elves are treated in greater Thedas (and the North but of course we're not allowed to see it cause the game just isn't that confident)
TL;DR- How did the First Warden know about me botching the Job with the Elven Artifact, and also, why would he care about a relatively new organization? Is he on all the Faction News Letters? Is there a substack?
Davrin’s gentle eyes matches his hobby of choice (whittling) bc gentleness is required to keep from splintering the wood and then to add detail to the figures that he makes… and just his overall gentle mindset for why he’s making a monster bestiary/codex (so that other people don’t get killed because these creatures are dangerous, you should engage with them with caution) and just he is so gentle and so thoughtful and yes, clan life wasn’t for him but he still thinks of them and thinks highly of his people and wants to protect them, and he still pays attention to nature and can see when something is wrong with it; Davrin who says he’ll open shop with Neve, davrin who has been collecting info on monsters and creatures for years enough to have a book that can be published, davrin who grieves and mourns his friends very obviously, davrin who knows dwarven to greet the grey wardens’s partners on the deep roads, davrin who was in trusted with the griffons, not just because he was supposed to be the bodyguard but because remi and lancet saw his potential and acknowledged it — and he’s not just the bodyguard but the safe guard and keeper of their future and a the father of one (Assan), he thinks highly and references his family both biological and found, he remembers fondly riding on aravels and being around the campfire — he’s the one with the heart of a Halla too!!
cole’s relationship with pretty much any companion is depressing - that’s the whole purpose of him, to serve as a mouthpiece for the pain of the others - but i think vivienne might be the saddest one because i don’t think it’s solely about his role as a narrative device.
on a literal level, cole is digging up the darkest parts of vivienne’s psyche and examining them in front of anyone who happens to be around; as someone who abhors any public show of weakness, vivienne is going to be bothered by this. but there’s more than a few lines that imply she’s secretly protective of cole, and that her open displays of hatred are a front.
Cole: No. You were worried. The part of you that forgets I'm me cared. You want it to go away.
one of vivienne’s worst memories is her harrowing, a trauma that defined how she thinks about privacy, magic, control, and essentially, the rest of her life. cole might be a spirit, but he’s physically indistinguishable from a young mage boy, about the same age vivienne was when she was harrowed. i think looking at him reminds her of that experience, even when he’s not trying to do so, and i think cole in general reminds her of herself. she’s not responding to him as a backstory conduit, but as a person.
neither of them get to be alone in their heads. both of them are torn between their desire to do good and the lurking specter of despair, the fear that no matter how hardworking or strong they are, their best efforts to help are only palliative. vivienne is a traumatized incrementalist with quiet doubts about her methods, and cole is a spirit of compassion who looks like a mage kid. he hurts her just by existing.
Cut lines in the script mention Davrin being First to Eldrin as a Keeper. That, along with Davrin being pictured with a staff in his concept art, makes it likely he was originally intended to be a mage.
source for the images
Check out the tag for more useless facts: #useless davg fact of the day!
davrin has some interesting little bits of dialogue with emmrich about mages “never” understanding how he feels about the fade, and about being unconvinced by what his clan “already tried” to explain to him. rlly interested in whatever his tense relationship w his clan’s keeper must have been for that particular fallout with authority. more theoretical and possibly already contradicted by canon bc i haven’t heard all the dialogue: i wonder sometimes if they were family, bc whoever his actual blood relations in the clan were, he seems to have spent all his time with “uncle” eldrin instead. i feel like a keeper family figure, too busy for him and not able to communicate with him very well when they did spend time together, maybe expecting him to take particular roles in the clan one day and not prepared for him to follow his own path, kind of makes sense? of course they don’t have to be family bc the keeper kind of fulfils that role for everyone in a clan anyway, i just thought it might be an interesting angle
Every Dragon Age game has at least one character who wouldn't hesitate to eavesdrop, or be rude as hell, or not be able to resist a mystery. Or a spirit to blurt out shit they shouldn't know. These are a gift to the fan writers, to keep the plot moving, and we should be duly grateful.
Mmmm yes so true. How to do anything? Just have Cole say a beautiful, cryptic message, which makes Solas reconsider everything, and also have Cole be sitting on the windowsill of your pining Lavellan as her sweetest friend.
