ok im awake. i think the thing is that for the most part, the "varric is a prisioner" reasoning for why he's there doesnt really work for me for multiple reasons and varric always just felt to me like he was there for the sake of bringing back hawke and the fact that gaider wasnt able to kill him. and then his veilguard death is so lame i might as well kill him before.
so varric dies in haven. bc i feel like haven is the sweet sweet spot where you have had some time to bond with this character but its still early enough that killing him will be a punch to the gut. plus haven is a disaster scenario where one can expect people to die and its also the best quest in this damn game.
now my version of in your heart shall burn is a little bit different (bc there is a chance corypheus doesnt actually show up here and its just his dragon. put a pin on that) but regardless, mass destruction, and varric maybe has a little of a 'heroic death' as in idk maybe he jumps in front of the inquisitor as the dragon attacks, or he causes a distraction which leads to his death or he sees the red lyrium and starts firing and gets chomped to death. doesnt really matter, what matters here is that the main character sees this death and theres the impact of like. important characters can and will die in this game, so hopefully this helps raise the damn stakes and also gives the inquisitor even more of a personal and emotional beef against cory
so you have this really somber atmosphere when reaching skyhold, and sometime after, while things are still slowly gettng rebuild, Bianca shows up. i think she initially shows up bc of varric's death, to maybe grab his remains etc and then she decides to stay. she tells the inquisitor that shes an inventor, that she made the crossbow varric used and that at the very least, she can come up with new weapons for the inquisition (which would be very valuable since again. a bunch of people just died and the inquisition needs to restock everything). so bianca essentially 'replaces' varric as one of our rogue companions.
Bianca joins for a few reasons bc its not just for varric. there is still the whole plotline about her being the one to leak the location of red lyrium to corypheus. i think in this scenario, Bianca doesnt know that she leaked to Corypheus, but she has connected the dots that whoever she leaked it to is connected to "the elder one" so remaining with the inquisition will also give her the tools to discover more information. Also in this version of things, corypheus is still using his larius/janeka disguise and instead of erimond, its under this guise that corypheus is manipulating the wardens, if bianca is brought along for HLTA, she will be able to point out that she knows this warden bc she's had "dealings" with them in the past.
i think post hlta is where her personal quest would trigger where she needs to go to this thaig and its revealed bianca was the one to leak the red lyrium. and this will have consequences where like. i think maybe the inquisitor can choose to forgive her or do a sit in judgement bc Why not. but regardless, it does lead to a conversation where bianca gets more in depth about like. her history with varric, and the many reasons she joined the inquisition, and her guilt over leaking the red lyrium and how she was trying to 'atone' for it but she also couldnt find the courage to come clean about it until now etc.
i like bianca being a companion instead of varric bc i think that the whole red lyrium plot makes more sense for her then him. yes, varric has a personal stake with the red lyrium due to bartrand and his own exposure to it, but its so underdeveloped, whereas bianca has been studying this thing for some time which means she can brings more information and also it would fix the issue of the Dwarf Companion TM being some guy we already had AND also the gender disparity where every class only has 1 woman and 2 men. like it doesnt fix everything but its a start if you know what i mean. plus potentially it would be fun to see dagna and bianca team up in their expertise. also yes, ideally, bianca is also romanceable. cheat on your husband while grieving your boyfriend.
but also i do think it would be more interesting to hear about that relationship from bianca then varric. idk the bianca reveal always felt a little underwhelming (i think the comics kinda did it better which. god.) and i think bianca actually being the one to explain it at least keeps that thing of "this is the story varric never talks about" stay true bc he died b4 talking about it. also if Really needed, bianca can still be the one to contact hawke.
anyways this post is too long but do you get the vision
