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brycecousland-a · 7 years ago

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Why! Sorry to bother you, but Im really interested in that post where you said the Cousland Warden could have a strong claim on the throne. Can you please please talk a bit more about it? I love the political aspects of DA-

It’s not a problem, I love talking about politics too. Though I’m not as well versed in medieval politics as I’d like to be.

The problem with the politics in DA is that they’re often glossed over or forgotten entirely.

If we’re going by Middle Ages rules, GoT rules would come closest. Cousland, technically, should be like the Lannisters or the Starks. More powerful than that even. They’re the second most powerful family in the realm after the King, come from a distinguished noble line which dates back to antiquity, and the child of an exceedingly popular war hero that many nobles wanted to have take over the throne instead of Cailan after Maric died.

Cousland descends from:

1) The most powerful landowner in the realm.

This means vassals, lots of vassals, lots of bannermen, lots of smaller lords who owe them their allegiance, and lots of blood ties to other noble houses. This is in opposition to Loghain who, while a war hero, is a commoner. Most loyalties and allegiances to him stem from Fereldan’s most recent war with Orlais.

They should actually be able to call up an army on their name alone.

Cousland is the one Grey Warden candidate you can pick who is literally hamfisted into the role. They have options. Bioware doesn’t want you to think it, but they do. They are the one Warden candidate who can pretty much give Duncan the middle finger at any point between A to B and depending on how you want to think about it, they’ve a duty to do exactly that in the name of keeping their family name alive. With their mother and father dead, and their brother missing, they are the acting Teyrn Cousland.

Unless they want to suicide the family line and all their responsibility therein, they have no business joining the Grey Wardens. They should be the Sebastian of DA: Origins. On a mission to gain alliances to regain the family lands and restore the title stolen from them by one of Loghain’s bannermen.

They’d be able to find themselves some loyal retainers who escaped Howe and make a dash for the nearest supportive Bann in order to rally the troops to oust Howe.

2) Ancient House. Ancient name. Popular House. Popular name.

All those qualities buy a lot of currency, and Cousland isn’t a bastard like Alistair. They’re a known quantity. They should have about as many connections to the rest of the Bannorn, if not more, than Anora. Old family alliances they can trade on and barter favors for.

Seriously, knocking off Bryce Cousland is like trying to knock off the Earl of Warwick or the Duke of York. You can, sure, but they’re so well insulated that you’d piss everyone off and launch the country straight into civil war.

What did Loghain say to Howe when he came up with this plan?

“Howe, I’ll give you the Teyrnir if you knock off the Couslands when we destabilize the country thus making it easier for Orlais to invade.”

???

Loghain should have never wanted Bryce dead along with Cailan. He should’ve wanted him neutered, tied up, seen the majority of his forces destroyed, and left in a vulnerable position where he’d be forced to rely on Loghain for assistance when the Orlesian “invasion” that Loghain foresaw finally came.

You want a man like Bryce leashed and providing stability for you, not dead. And if Bryce won’t do, assassinate him and make one of his children take up the cause. Let them deal with taking over their position and forcing them to rely on you. Meanwhile, keeping the Couslands close lends Loghain the legitimacy he needs as he cannot claim the throne for himself or through his daughter.

Neither of them have any legitimacy and only able to rule by force or arms.

The convenient solution would be to take the wet behind the ears Teynir just come off the two experienced members of their family murdered at Ostagar, marry them to Anora to lend the throne the legitimacy it needs in the wake of Cailan’s planned death and reassure the people or marry the surviving daughter himself to unite their lands, and move forward from there.

Bloodlines are valuable.

The North went to war with the South over the death of Eddard Stark.

“You killed my liege lord! I will take vengeance!”

This is ridiculously common because with their liege dead, the banns who stood for Cousland must now work to maintain their status quo. Their power has been crippled.

The Bannorn was willing to put Bryce on the throne, shunting Cailan from claiming his birthright. This tells me that, for all their supposedly the vaunted True Kings, the Theiriens didn’t have a powerful grip on the monarchy, and they also lacked the faith and trust of their Banns.

If Cousland is male, why would Anora have any interest in a marriage alliance with Alistair when the more popular and legitimate option is standing right there? Why wouldn’t anyone else bring it up or treat you like you’re unimportant?

If Cousland is female, possibly the last surviving female of the Cousland bloodline, why doesn’t Arl Eamon jump on that? Sure, a male Cousland is bad when it comes to his designs on the throne for Alistair but a female? Female Cousland would give Alistair the legitimacy he (as a bastard) needs and give him (with Eamon as proxy) a significant status boost/hold over their lands/means to disrupt Loghain and Howe’s stranghold/nice sob story to villainize Loghain in the eyes of the populace and lure in the Cousland aligned nobles.

A marriage alliance should’ve been one of the things that was on everyone’s mind at the conclave and the Banns who didn’t care for either option should’ve been pushing for Cousland, regardless of gender, to throw their hat in the ring.

TLDR: Loghain is stupid.

3) The Theirin line is not that strong.

This may be resulting from the fact that Bioware really, really, really doesn’t understand how politics work but if Maric’s seat was unsteady enough that the Bannorn could knock him off in favor of one of his own then his grip wasn’t strong. Cailan also, as far as we know, wasn’t a strong king.

Whatever mystic strength they’re endowed with, they suck at politics and not in an endearing way.

4) The one Warden army.

You can’t say they haven’t proven themselves on the field of battle or as a diplomat, bringing an alliance of Mages or Templars, Elves or Werewolves, and dwarves in true Gondor calls for aid fashion.

They’re the Aragorn in this equation, not Alistair.

They took a ragtag band of misfits and united Fereldan to stand against the Blight. They murdered their way through the Deep Roads. They’ve killed their way in, and out of, at least a few castles by the time they’ve arrived in Denerim. They’ve fought through demons and Abominations in the Tower.

They’ve got the bastard son of the previous king tagging along at their heel, who lets them do the talking for him.

(I’d be seriously concerned about this if I was Arl Eamon.)

Everything about them says, “I am a competent warleader, mass murderer, I will slay your house and your guard if you disagree with me. I don’t need that massive army I amassed behind me to walk onto the battlefield and wreck your shit. I’ve face tanked all the ogres. Hear me roar.”

Let’s be honest, if you had to choose between Alistair, Anora, and the guy/girl who could probably murder everyone in the room if they felt like it, who’d you choose?

Honestly, all Wardens should have the ability to become King or Queen. By the point they’ve hit Denerim, they’ve pretty much reached Warlord Who Bends Knee Because They Feel Like It status. The Viking lord who when gifted with Normandy grabbed the French King by the foot on his horse and hung him off it when he lifted it up to kiss it. The French King demanded he kiss his foot as a show of homage. The other guy didn’t care and he didn’t have to because he had them by the shorthairs.

Winner by the sword.

Your Inquisitor had even less reason not to conquer the world, by the way. They had a private army, independently funded, and loyal to a cult of personality rather than ideals. No one wants an Inquisition because you never have a way to make it stop until it burns itself out.

Seriously, all the Inquisitor has to do is point at a local lord and say, “My Andrastian gifted senses tell me that this man is in league with demons!” and the majority of the populace would believe them then they could take the lord for all his land and money turning it over to someone more agreeable to Inquisition policy.

You’re killing me, Bioware!

This is how the Church worked. You can see the same concepts at play beautifully (and terrifyingly) in The Witcher 3 when they’re overturning the houses of rich setting minorities like sorceresses and ransacking them.

A large part of persecuting minorities throughout history has been for money. Jews in Europe were the only ones who handled money because the Catholic Church considered the handling of money unclean. They acted as the medieval banks, lending money because they were forbidden or driven from most other forms of commerce. Jews were persecuted in Europe periodically when either the Church or some Lord wanted a scapegoat and their money.

There are literal religious institutions built around killing people and taking their stuff.

Both the Warden and the Inquisitor fall into this warlord category.

Bioware likes to pretend that they’re not actually powerful enough to change anything, but really they could both knock over the monarchies of Fereldan and Orlais for themselves if they wanted.

Cousland’s just the one with the best excuse to do it and the most cultural backing behind them.

5) Bioware falls under the “My Character is Too Important for My Story” Trope.

Bioware are like a lot of fantasy writers who want their characters to be important. Alistair is the bastard son of a king. You can play an exiled dwarven prince/princess and you’re running around as the last Cousland, the second most powerful family in the realm after the King, trying to get revenge on your house.

The problem with Cousland is that they’re encountering more situations than the others where people should know who they are and accord them their station. If no one knows Castle Cousland has fallen to the Howes (HOW DOES NO ONE KNOW? HOWE IS NOT THAT STEALTHY??? THE CASTLE WAS BURNING???), then they should be recognizable and welcomed by the vast majority of nobles, possibly even commoners, that they encounter.

Unlike Alistair, they should have some level of celebrity on name recognition alone and guesting privileges with a number of Arls and Banns from big to small.

They’re the one Warden who’d have to work hard enough to stay undercover.

It’s not, “Find me two Wardens.”

It’s, “Find me, Cousland.”

The first time I played Cousland, I genuinely forgot how important they were supposed to be halfway through the game and by the time I got to Redcliffe I figured an Arl and a Bann were more important than a Teyrn which was why everyone was so mad at Loghain for taking over the throne because he was acting in a manner so far above his station.

Tiny house that was friends with the previous King seizes the throne through his daughter, the now dowager queen, makes a lot more sense as an insult.

Genuinely, I thought Teyrn was the littlest and teeniest of the houses because of the way no one seemed to care much about who Cousland is or be disturbed by the fact Loghain just handed all the lands to that bastard Arl Howe.

Hell, I’m still confused as to what Howe is even doing in Denerim. He should be dealing with a civil war unless all the Cousland vassals, all their bannermen, and all their vassals’ children have all been wiped out.

Statistically, that’d be about half the Bannorn if not more given that they’ve more ties to the Cousland line through blood than to commoner-born Loghain.

Anora has nothing to offer other than her skill as a ruler (or really an administrator, which is not insignificant), but she is a commoner from a house that has only one generation to its name. Her ability to hold onto the throne comes almost entirely from her father as she doesn’t have any lands to her name or soldiers of her own.

If she keeps the crown, it’s because the Warden backs her and because the Bannorn primarily cares about the status quo returning to normal.

Cousland’s backing, even if only on their name, would lend her the legitimacy she’d need away from her father. An alliance (marriage or otherwise) with them, would give her more social credit to trade with the other Banns when it came time to securing their vote.

It kills me, man. It really does.

There’s probably lots I’m forgetting too, but Cousland is, well, that one Warden who brings way more to the table than anyone else. On name recognition alone. They genuinely don’t belong in the story that Bioware is trying to tell with the Wardens, tbh because their presence directly shoots Alistair’s claim to the throne in the foot and tosses him off a mountain.

It’s painfully obvious that when Bioware was originally structuring this way back when DAO was supposed to be multiplayer like Neverwinter Nights with all the different backgrounds available to play that M!Cousland’s plot was for him to end up as King.

He’s made for it. It’s the natural fantasy trope trajectory for him.

It’s the only way any of the contextual clues and surviving plot lines for the Cousland’s make sense or why their plot more than other is so wound directly into Loghain, the main antagonist’s. The other characters all get their special zones, but Cousland’s trajectory is tied up in the main plot and they should have more insight into what’s happening with Loghain and Fereldan than anyone else.

It is unbalanced and downright weird.

Note: I am not saying Cousland is a more legitimate background pick than any of the others, (though Bioware’s favoritism for the human noble across three different games should be obvious). I’m just saying that they are tied into and their experiences are directly relevant to the main story in a way that the others aren’t.

For Alistair and Anora to be King or Queen, Cousland should not exist. Even if you stripped all the other legitimacy out of them, they’d still have their name and they could trade on that alone in Fereldan and Orleisian society.

I could go on about this for days, though I don’t know if that answered any of your questions.

I do love Cousland but on a setting and story level they drive me nuts because it’s one of the ways that the story falls onto its face.

#•●[ relevant ]●•#kind of #I don’t think Loghain knew everything that was happening #but besides that #especially the political part drives me nuts

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