My absolute favourite thing about Fenris romance in DA2 is that he walks away from it.
It’s so unusual and unexpected. You don’t think an NPC would have this kind of agency, especially after you did all the right things and pressed all the right buttons and got into their pants. This is where romance storylines tend to end: they boned, and lived happily ever after.
But… no. Hawke does nothing wrong, as far as we know. The sex was, at the very least, ‘fine’. But Fenris doesn’t want to risk another flashback, or just too upset by the first one, or simply feels this is all too much and too soon, as he says. And he leaves. There’s no discussion. He apologises, he knows this will hurt Hawke, but he’s not letting Hawke talk him into anything. He doesn’t even explain all that much, and frankly he doesn’t need to. Of course he’s free to walk away from a relationship he doesn’t want, or isn’t ready to have.
And that’s Hawke! Fenris’ first and, at the time, still only friend. The only person Fenris can count on to have his back if the hunters come for him again. (And this scene happens after A Bitter Pill, so hey they just did) By then Fenris is getting closer to Aveline, Varric and Isabela at least, but he probably knows that if they’re forced to pick a side they’ll choose Hawke. So Fenris risks severing all the connections he’s made in Kirkwall, if Hawke is hurt and offended enough to throw away their friendship.
Fenris really thinks that’s a possibility. He’s relieved and happy when Hawke takes him on a mission again, there’s a banter about that. But he still leaves, even if it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done, because that’s what’s right for him at the time.
That had been one of the parts that impressed me the most in DA2. That NPCs had their own agenda. Fenris leaving Hawke after their night together, Aveline refusing them even if she is not able to be close to Donnic. Isabela leaving with the Tome, even if she comes back later eventually. That was such a rich and impressive thing to me as a gamer.
I still can’t believe the things I read about da2 before playing - the people who were angry at Fenris for leaving, who moved on to other LIs and even chose to sell Fenris to Danarius as some kind of punishment for breaking their precious Hawkes’ hearts.
Fenris taking the time he needs is one of the things that makes this relationship so important to me. I feel like it makes their bond so much stronger for the fact that they can remain friends, that they still care about each other, that Fenris *isn’t* punished for seeing to his own needs before the wants of the player character. It’s such a rare dynamic and it means so much to me I can’t even begin to explain it.
“Life is grand. You know that. The more experienced a person is, the deeper they go into life, the less black and white it is. And that incredibly interesting shade of grey gets to be played. But within that shade, there are infinite varieties, right? So I think that’s just her. The black is the bad guy, white is the good guy. But we all know the true parameters of life lie in between those two. And Flemeth is the absolute exploration thereof.”
- Kate Mulgrew, in “A Shade of Flemeth”
Dragon age origins is like…. You’re nineteen, new in town, and it’s your second day at pizza hut. You don’t even know how to work the register yet and you just watched your manager get carted off by the paramedics. You have no contact info for him, his next of kin, or corporate. The only other employee is the guy who’s been here for two weeks and is a bit of a doofus, and neither of you really know what you’re supposed to do now. You both desperately need this job though, and the doofus at least has a drivers license and *kiiinda* knows how to use the oven so you just. Shrug, and start taking orders and making pizzas and praying to god that the bills are on autopay.
And weirdly enough you’re really good at this: making pizzas and dealing with shitty customers and breaking up fights in the parking lot and pretending to be Duncan’s cousin on the phone so the utility company doesn’t cut off the power. But running a store is a lot of work for two dumb kids, so slowly you start accumulating a bunch of competent weirdos to help out, like the nun who left her convent because god told her to help you make pizzas, and the elderly school teacher who just survived a mass shooting, and the guy the papa johns down the street hired to run you over. And really there’s no way any of this should be working as well as it is - you’re absolutely committing fraud of some kind here - but you’ve managed to dodge the landlord every time he’s stopped by, and the health inspector never shows up to tell you to stop letting your dog hang out behind the counter and you’re all still kinda looking at each other and asking ‘are we allowed to just do this?’ before shrugging again and continuing to make pizzas, until somehow, through a series of unlikely technicalities, your doofus coworker ends up on the ballot for governor.
And after like five months of this the regional manager wanders in out of nowhere and you’re sure he’s about to chew your ass out for this mess, but it turns out he’s pretty chill and honestly kind of impressed with how you managed to keep the place up and running all on your own. So now you’re all thinking ‘thank god, there’s someone here who actually knows how to run a Pizza Hut’ only for him to get hit by a car two days later on the night of the Super Bowl.
I bring you a Dragon Age Map with the OFFICIAL distances calculated in miles! Higher rez version here for the regular map and here for the map with extra large boxes to help with reading larger distances.
Details under cut.
So I had been on the hunt for a Thedas map that actually had any distances calculated on it for years. There's some fan maps, but none were official.
Well, imagine my shock when I opened my dragon age ttrpg book to find a map at the back that DOES include official distances!! If you have the book, check the back, it's glued in there.
I found no one had uploaded this map online, though. So I took a photo, lined it up as best as I could with a map I found online of the same style, and then pasted in the distance calculator in the corner. I then added a grid on top. I couldn't find a better way of doing it than 5 squares for every 70 miles, which means each square is about 14 miles. I thought that'd be easier to calculate than trying to break a 70 mile chunk down.
Then I realized by looking at the map that trying to calculate longer distances using that map will suck cause they're such tiny squares... so I added another grid on top to make it so the large grid is 70 miles. I included both versions of the map for anyone to use.
According to this map and some online calculators, Varric was wrong that it took Hawke 2 weeks to get to Kirkwall from Gwaren. it should have taken closer to 20 days. But eh, not too big an error and 2 weeks sounds neater. Plus, we know he's an unreliable narrator.
The funny thing is, it takes nearly (edit: MORE than) 2 weeks to get across Ferelden. On horseback. Warden was walking. Warden... how far did you walk... How many miles did you cover...
Anyone feel free to spice up the map however you'd like! I hope this is helpful for anyone out there!
actually i love that we never got to know anders' name. it's such a defining detail because i don't think that at the start of daa/da2 he even feels the need to tell anyone what he was called once, no matter how close he gets to the people around him. does it even matter now? is there something left from the boy that set that barn on fire and never saw his home again? he's used to anders and it suits him, not even because of his origin, but because of the reason why he got that name. not speaking, not disclosing anything about himself to people who locked him up was his first act of rebellion, in a way. it took him years and a spirit of justice and also a lot of shit to start caring about other mages, but he couldn't accept what was happening to him since he was a kid and oh boy was he determined to stand his ground even when it couldn't change that much. i mean, that's why he is anders. quite literally. the first spark of the mage rebellion was lit by a person who was stubborn enough to never give his name away to anyone in that tower
Watching the healthy conflict resolution in newer Dragon Age games is crazy because it used to be the little things that would tear your found family apart. If Alistair had told Morrigan that water is wet she would have probably just straight up killed him. The Amell Estate could be spewing furniture out of shattered windows and unholy screams might be emanating from inside and some tired NPC would be like "yeah the spirit healer told the lyrium warrior that a hot dog is a sandwich again."
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