Lucanis matters as a character/companion because he’s written for the quiet ones. The Ace ones who rarely get represented in games. The ones who flinch from touch, feeling unworthy of love or care. The ones who didn’t get to be saved from their abuse. The ones who were always strong because they had no other choice. And now, he’s soft because someone like Rook showed him he could be. Someone showed up for him, maybe no one ever showed up for you the way Rook does for all the companions. And that's why games are so important because they can be healing for the player, Lucanis was that for me. Am I completely patched up? No. I don't think I'll ever be, but every time I show up for him, as Rook, it fixes something, it helps me, helping him.
And I will be forever grateful to BioWare for giving me this 💗
God I just need to talk about how much I love how the game handles Lucanis's PTSD, especially as someone living with PTSD.
Spoilers for Veilguard and Lucanis's story line under the cut.
Grab a drink and a snack. This is a long one XD
After -checks notes- 450hrs into Veilguard, I can confidently say that Lucanis is my favorite character, and not just because of his lethal sad puppy eyes. For this post, I'll just be focusing specifically on his PTSD and how it's portrayed.
So we first meet Lucanis in the Ossuary, after a very dramatic slaughter of some Venatori guards. For a guy who has been locked up and tortured for a year, he looks pretty damn good. I know this is just game bullshit, but I like it from the perspective of a mask, a protective front. He looks collected, well put together, suave, the perfect image of a master assassin, a Crow, a world class mage-killer. This is kind of what someone would expect him to look like. This is what he's supposed to look like. He doesn't look like a man who has been tortured for a year, because it's hidden behind an acceptable appearance.
Of course the deeper we go through the Ossuary, we see evidence of the horrendous experiments that went on there, just a tiny fraction, a hint of what Lucanis went through. Then afterwards, he talks a little about his experience with the others as we walk around doing quests. One such dialog always stuck with me:
Davrin: So this Ossuary Rook found you in, what goes on down there?
Lucanis: Nothing good.
Davrin: How did you survive?
Lucanis: Think nothing, feel nothing, except what you need to escape.
Davrin: What's left?
Lucanis: If you're lucky? Revenge. And bad dreams.
Every time I hear this, I feel like someone is squeezing my heart with both hands. First of all, there's a very clear deflection in each line Lucanis says. "And bad dreams" is delivered with a touch of humor and lightness, the sort of tone that's used to make the person you're talking to smile or chuckle, which would diffuse the tense moment, take the pressure off of him and sweep his true feelings under the rug while Davrin is distracted from them by the joking tone.
Once again, that mask, that front, is in place. Davrin expects the events of the Ossuary to be horrific, so Lucanis plays a bit of the part, agrees that it was horrible, but it's so incredibly surface level, and he keeps it that way. As Davrin asks questions, tries to dig a little deeper, Lucanis pulls the card of "I survived the Ossuary and all I got was this stupid shirt."
The world conditions us to wear the mask; no one actually wants a real answer when they ask "how are you?" When we've experienced trauma, we hold onto that mask even tighter because we feel damaged or hurt on the inside. We aren't supposed to be that way, feel that way. No one wants to deal with that.
A Crow isn't supposed to be that way. The Demon of Vyrantium isn't supposed to be broken, damaged. He's supposed to be a professional, a master class assassin, the heir to the seat of First Talon.
We see a lot of Lucanis struggling with who he is after the Ossuary as well, which is one of my favorite details. There are moments, like after Weisshaupt, when Lucanis says "I thought after the Ossuary, I could still take out a target." Or when we first meet him in the cell, when Rook says Caterina promised them a mage-killer and Lucanis replies "I can still work." During the quest Inner Demons, there are so many thought fragment notes where Lucanis says he isn't supposed to be like this, that he's better than this, that he can't be like this.
God, breaks my heart. I empathize with that so much. Something I personally struggled with a lot when learning to live with PTSD was the fact that I felt like I wasn't the same person I was before my trauma. I was so angry, because I really liked the person I was before. I was happy, and now all of a sudden, I felt like the exact opposite. For quite some time, I couldn't think of it as anything else. I didn't want to move forward, because that would be accepting that I've changed.
Then there's the expectation of living up to what people remember you as and the shame when you fall flat and the people you care about see that shortcoming. You feel like a burden. They didn't sign up to deal with your bullshit.
Think of it like carrying an overcrowded tray of drinks. It's heavy, cumbersome, and any jostle to your person spills a little bit of that water. Any obstacle, big or small, threatens the delicate balance of the sudden armful of crap you're forced to carry. And when you do fumble, make a mistake, step where you thought there was solid ground, only to find a pot hole, those glasses come crashing down in a loud and explosive commotion that draws the attention of everyone around you. All of a sudden you're soaked, surrounded by the signs of your failure, and you feel so embarrassed and ashamed because you just caused a scene. All of a sudden, people are asking if you're ok, and we all know that just makes it worse. They either offer to help you clean up or eye the mess with judgement and neither of those options feel good.
Lucanis is a mage-killer. He was hired to kill mages, something he's done hundreds of times. And yes it's a near impossible task and he gets so close the first time, but when his reality and sense of self is already shaken, any little jostle can threaten the delicate balance he's trying to hold on to.
-
Inner Demons is probably my favorite quest out of the entire game. It is such a fantastic representation of how PTSD feels to the body and the mind.
Before Spite even pulls Rook into his host's mind, we see that Lucanis is extremely irritated. He is extremely quick to anger, which was something we haven't really seen from him before. He's gotten annoyed with others, but never raised his voice. Here, he's snapping at Viago and growling about how he doesn't know how to deal with the situation. Teia is definitely not helping when she tells Lucanis to reason with Viago, applying more pressure when the poor thing is already pulled so tight, he's about to break.
A common symptom of PTSD is that sudden and explosive anger at seemingly small things. I once got so mad while trying to hang curtains, that I literally ripped the bracket out of the wall, threw it, screamed, then broke down sobbing.
Once Spite pulls Rook into Lucanis's mind, they're confronted with four different people they have to get past to get to the heart of the prison, where Lucanis has barricaded himself. It's pretty obvious these are protective walls he's built for himself, to keep people out and to keep the parts of himself he's ashamed of inside. However, we can already see these walls starting to crumble, because the first room Rook steps into, the outer most wall, is supposed to be their room.
Rook: Nobody's here.
Spite: Of course not. Rook can't be here.
Rook: Why not?
Spite: You open doors. You don't close them.
Through the constant support Rook has given Lucanis, he's starting to allow some of the damaged parts of him show around them, whether it's a conscious or unconscious decision. He's starting to feel safe around them.
This is massive. I mentioned above that showing that vulnerability, that "damaged" side of one's self can be full of so much embarrassment and shame, but finding those people you can be your entire self with? Scars and breakdowns and everything, and they still love and support you without judgement? That shit is priceless. I can't put into words how good that feels. I love seeing Lucanis find that person. (I love being that person when I play the game.)
Deeper into the prison, Rook meets with Lucanis's version of Caterina, Harding, Neve, and Illario, each getting more vulnerable with what they say and represent.
I like Harding's scene in particular. If Rook takes Harding with them to free Lucanis, she is not quiet about how she doesn't trust Lucanis, how abominations only bring trouble and pain. Then afterwards, she boldly threatens him with a rather twisted arrow, one she bought specifically to use against him, should he turn against her and her friends. Later on, well before the Inner Demons quest, they have this conversation:
Lucanis: Harding, I am giving the arrow back to you.
Harding: What? No! I gave you that to show you that I trust you.
Lucanis: And I am giving it back to show that I trust you.
Beautiful. Stunning. One of my favorite party dialogs in the game. It shows their development perfectly, and all with just 3 lines.
But it makes her appearance in the prison fantastic, because Harding refers to Lucanis as "the prisoner," boldly asks Rook if they're sure there ever was a Lucanis and not just the demon, and points out that the mind they're standing in is broken and wrong, that it can't possible belong to a human being. Lucanis trusts Harding at this point, he knows this, understands this, but trauma and fear are never logical. You can know and understand something perfectly, but that doesn't mean your body is going to listen.
Illario gets a really good line, too.
Illario: He'll [Lucanis] carry this prison with him forever, and fill it with corpses, given time.
The theme of the prison is that Lucanis sees himself as a monster after coming back from the Ossuary as an abomination (btw I hate this term and want to burn it out of the game universe.) So, this line is probably talking about how freeing Lucanis from his mind prison would get people killed, because he'll lose control of Spite and go on a rampage and all that.
However, it also makes me think about the fear of losing the people he cares about, because suddenly he carries this trauma that can push or frighten people away. The "corpses" aren't literal, but figurative, to describe the relationships he might lose. Lucanis has his new found family that he cares about, Rook included, and he doesn't want to lose that. All his life, the only thing people wanted from him, saw value in, were his skills as a Crow. That warmth, care, and accepting for parts of himself that have nothing to do with his skills as an assassin, but things he actually likes and enjoys… It's something he's never had before.
-
FINALLY we get to the best part of the mind prison. The part that fucking resonates with me every single time I play the quest.
Rook finds Lucanis standing in the middle of the torture area, where all the tables, corpses, and cages are, where he was cut open and tested on. This is where his trauma truly stems from, so it's really cool that we find him here.
It's pretty neat to see what Spite was referring to all those times he tried to leave when Lucanis was sleeping or when he told Rook that their deal was broken, that he wanted "out." He clearly doesn't understand trauma and mental health when it comes to mortals. So seeing the prison Lucanis’s mind has become, he just assumes it’s the actual prison.
We get a really awesome bit of conversation between the three here.
Spite: He breaks our agreement. His mind. Is still here. He wants. To stay here. So he keeps. ME HERE!!
Lucanis: Mierda! Why would I want to stay? Even in my head, this place is a nightmare.
Rook: Right, but it's a nightmare you already defeated... I get it now. As painful as the Ossuary was for you, it was better than the alternative.
Lucanis: What alternative?
Rook: The Ossuary, Zara? Those were problems you could solve with a blade. But healing again? Learning to live life as an abomination? There's no clear answer there.
Lucanis: No! I... That is not... Ugh!! Damn it, Rook!!
And it's TRUE!! When healing from trauma, the treatments (therapy, support groups, medication, etc.) are important, but recovering is not straight forward, one size fits all. And that can be so frustrating and scary. I can only speak for myself here, of course, but I was so angry all the time. I didn't sign up for this shit, for this extra work, this fight for normalcy and sense of myself again, when I already had it. In an instant, my life was flipped upside down and shaken out, like a puzzle that showed a picture of who I am, but was chucked at the ground to be reduced to pieces, and now I had to work to put it together again.
It's also not easy to admit that something is wrong, that you could be wrong.
Spite turns to Rook:
Spite: Make him leave!
Rook, diplomatic option: He's trying to leave, Spite. It's... complicated. Mortals can't just change themselves. It takes a lot of time.
Beautiful. Perfection. Such a great response. Healing, recovery, learning to live the new normal... it's difficult, confusing, and takes such a long time. It can feel like being stuck in a prison, wandering endless, dark hallways with no sign of a possible exit, to the point where you start to wonder if there even is an exit.
The next line Lucanis says is my favorite out of the entire quest. Every time I hear it, I get a little emotional. The first time I went through the quest, I had to pause the game because it hit me so hard.
Lucanis: Rook, you're right. There has to be a way forward. It's just... so much! I cannot see where to begin!
Fuck, man.
I don't think I can properly put it into words how perfect this line of dialog is. This is it. This is what it feels like.
When I first started learning to cope with my PTSD, my therapist told me that her other clients going through a similar journey told her that it took a long time, but they eventually found a light at the end of the tunnel, that hope to overcome the struggle and darkness and weight of it all. I was never a pessimist before my trauma. I was always painfully optimistic, found the good in everything, but this... I didn't believe her. I 100% did not believe that I would find that light. It felt like so much. God, it was suffocating some days, debilitating. It felt like I was being asked to move a goddamn mountain. How was I supposed to move an entire mountain??
The answer, was to move smaller, more manageable rocks, one by one.
To start small.
This is the advice Rook gives Lucanis. They tell him to start small. Find an achievable goal and work towards that. For Lucanis, it's finding common ground with Spite, a goal they can both work towards together.
When the scene eventually comes back to the bar, Lucanis has a lightness to him, clarity. He knows what he needs to do to move forward. This one goal isn't going to get his mind out of the prison it made for itself, but it's getting him moving again, walking forward. The wards and guards have been dealt with, the doors are open.
Healing and learning to meet himself where he's at still won't be easy and there will be set backs, breakdowns, arguments with his inner demon, but every step forward, no matter how small, is progress. Every time Lucanis stumbles and falls, he'll start to remember how to stand back up again, and if he can't do it himself that day, maybe he just doesn't have the strength or he starts looking at the mountain again instead of just the smaller rocks, he's got people there who will take his hand and help him back to his feet, bring his attention back down to the manageable.
Veilguard was once Aegis. At least in the cut dialogue from the prologue, Varric calls his organization as such when introducing Rook to Harding and Neve.
So… our team? It's just the three of us?
By keeping the Aegis down to small teams of specialists, we stay fast, flexible, and avoid becoming a target.
So… the rest of Aegis is… where, exactly?
That's Aegis. All of us together should be able to act in ways Solas doesn't expect.
There are other mentions, but I'm not sure about the context here. In the text file, these lines are mixed with Lucanis and Davrin cut content.
You'll always have work with the Blades of Aegis.
(Chuckles) No idea what that's like.
No rest for the wicked.
Right, Lucanis?
But we're going to help.
I've a job. Won't interfere with Aegis business.
The code name of the very first banter with Taash also refers to the Aegis.
Lucanis being so sleep deprived he's practically sleepwalking over to the meditation room. Making his hazy way past several pairs of raised eyebrows and then up the stairs. He's down the hall, through the door, and on the couch before Rook even has a chance to offer him a coffee.
They think it's Spite at first when he just collapses down into their pillow and comically inhales, but there's no bloom of purple. No raspy questions about nonsensical concepts or objects. It's just Lucanis, looking for all the world like he's lost in the proverbial sauce.
"You... okay there?" They say with a half grin. All they get back is an 'oomph' sound.
"Ahh. Makes sense," they reply, turning from their spot on the floor to lean on the cushions. "You know, I'd bet good money that your cot in the pantry is a lot more comfortable than this old couch."
"Smells like you," he says, shoving his face even further into the pillow, and Rook, well. Rook just melts. They put their head on their arms, leaning on the edge of the couch closest to the crow currently on a different plane of existence.
"That's just not fair."
"You're not fair," he replies, petulant.
"Oh?" Rook laughs. "How so?"
"You're too--" Lucanis twists so he's facing them, cheek and nose pressed into the cushion. "Nice."
"I'm... too nice."
He groans his assent. "Meirda. Makes me mad."
"Me being nice... makes you mad?" They ask, grin still there, brow now cocked.
"Too nice," he corrects, shuffling towards them, nearly nose to nose. "Not fair. Makes me feel-- makes me want--"
He just stares at them then. Looks at them with those dark, hooded eyes like they stitched every star into the sky by hand.
"You going to finish one of those sentences, sweetheart?" Rook croons, feeling bold, feeling warm and happy and hopeful. They gently trace his jaw with thier fingers, then his cheekbone, down his nose. They don't dare touch his lips for the selfish fear of the spell being broken.
"Hm?" He nearly purrs. "What?"
"Sleep, Lucanis," they say, finally standing up to pull a blanket over him, boots and all. "I'll keep watch."
And he does. He's out like a snuffed candle. Spite only making an appearance to talk quietly with Rook while they sit vigil.
What patriarchy does to masculinity and femininity is the equivalent of what humanity did to those dogs with the faces so flat they can't breathe: it contorts them both over long periods of time to fit a standard it invented while causing indescribable amounts of pain and suffering.
I just quickly switched the general animations and checked their names. The result is a typical 'Choose which Lucanis are you today'. Most of them are very similar and differ only in how wide open eyes, mouth or raised eyebrow. It looks more diverse in dynamics. Don't ask why his sleepy expression is called pain lol. Maybe because not getting enough sleep is a real pain.
Lucanis and Rook fighting together though blighted Minrathous after she's only just come back from the fade prison gives me feels.
Can you imagine how hyper aware of her Lucanis and Spite must be? Trying to keep her in their line of sight, tracking her by scent, obliterating any enemy who dares lay a hand on his Rook because he's only just got her back and no way is he going to lose her again.
When they pause for a moment to catch their breath, he's beside her. Casually brushing his shoulder against hers, offering her water, checking her for wounds. The whole time Spite is keeping an eye out for approaching bad guys to let them have a minute.
A huge thank you to the wonderful @mescalitoart for bringing to life my beautiful Rook and her man! Brook Mercar just couldn't resist tucking a Brona's Bloom behind his ear because he absolutely deserves flowers ❤️
A huge thank you to the wonderful @mescalitoart for bringing to life my beautiful Rook and her man! Brook Mercar just couldn't resist tucking a Brona's Bloom behind his ear because he absolutely deserves flowers ❤️
A huge thank you to the wonderful @mescalitoart for bringing to life my beautiful Rook and her man! Brook Mercar just couldn't resist tucking a Brona's Bloom behind his ear because he absolutely deserves flowers ❤️
Imagine Lucanis taking a hit in a fight, more than a scratch but certainly not life-threatening, nothing he can't handle himself when he gets the chance. A Venatori blade just barely gets past his guard and armor, or a darkspawn gets a hit in with an oversized fist, bruising a few ribs. He still takes down the target of course, but for a moment as the fight ends, he can't stop himself from touching the wounded spot and hunching over a bit.
He straightens as Rook approaches and waves them away when they offer a healing potion.
"I'm fine," he assures them.
Rook looks him over with suspicious eyes. "Are you really fine, or are you Crow fine?"
"I don't know what that means," he lies, too tired and distracted by the pain to articulate a more clever deflection.
"Yes. You do," Rook insists. "So which is it?"
He sighs. "I'm... Crow fine."
He is thirty-six years old, but the admission summons a memory of his grandmother's disapproving scoff, as clear as if she stood beside him.
Rook presses the healing potion into his hand. They curl his fingers around it and bring his knuckles to their lips in a brief touch of affection and gratitude before going to check on the others.
I’ve seen people explore the idea that Spite protects Lucanis and Rook from their nightmares, and I agree wholeheartedly. And I think this would also extend to their children.
Can you imagine being a little kid in the middle of a nightmare and a glowing version of your dad shows up and annihilates the scary things? They would love him.
Even after Lucanis has died (after a long, happy life, thank you) and Spite has returned to the Fade, he continues to protect them and their descendants.
Any mage in the bloodline never has to fear possession; Spite won’t allow it. He tells every generation stories of the previous ones but especially stories about Lucanis and Rook. Over long years in the Fade, he reverts more and more to his original nature. He becomes a confidante of sorts, offering advice and encouragement, and the Dellamorte family gains a reputation for their stubborn determination to accomplish any task, no matter how daunting.
But every once in a while, he offers advice to his current favorite that is just a little spiteful, and his glowing eyes flicker purple as he gives them a wink.
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