Why We Never Got to Read Anders’s Manifesto in full (imho)
You know what always struck me about Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition?
We hear about Anders’s manifesto all the time - it's lying around in Hawke's mansion and later in Inquisition we find a snippet on the Storm Coast - but we never actually get to read it. Not all of it.
And I think that’s deliberate.
Because if BioWare ever let us read the full manifesto, the illusion of “grey morality” would collapse.
Because Anders’s writing voice would be calm. Rational. Structured. He’s not stupid - he’s a healer, a man who’s spent years trying to reason with a system that calls his existence a crime.
His spoken voice might be erratic and emotional (and honestly, who wouldn’t be, after everything he’s lived through?), but on the page? He’d be articulate. Meticulous. He’d be able to lay out — point by point — why the Circle system is institutional abuse disguised as protection.
And that would make it impossible for the player to sit comfortably in the middle.
Because once you strip away his anger, his bitterness and his other very real flaws, all that’s left is the truth - that the Chantry and the Templar Order survive by punishing everyone for the crimes of a few.
And then the whole “both sides have a point” narrative falls apart.
There’s no moral greyness in systemic oppression.
So the game can’t show us the manifesto. It can only hint at it.
It lets characters ignore it. Or just talk about it - but never lets us read the words themselves. Because if we could? If we could see the reason beneath the rage?
People would have to admit that Anders was right.
(If you want to read my version of it, hit me up. But be warned. It's... long.)
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