hallamshivanas

[hallamshivanas]

starting the game with dalish elves saying the evanuris weren't known for their kindness and including ghilan'nain explicitly on that given the legends about her is. A Choice

[hallamshivanas]

You say to craft creatures to protect our people. I have already given them my halla. I made them when I was younger. Untraveled. Naive. I did not know then what flesh could do when compelled. Tell our people to treasure those animals. I could not make them now.

this tidbit, to me, is ghilan'nain acknowledging she is so changed she could never make something as pure as the halla again. it is not about an inability to replicate her creation but that, being who she is now, she would never create something like that. it is that she, herself, can never be as innocent and sinless again. not that this is seen as negative! she deems it naivety and lack of experience, to be bright eyed as she was before. it is a loss, regardless; or, better phrased, a change, and an irreversible one at that. she wants more; to do more, to learn more, to see how far she can take her craft, even if it involves, as solas' letter says, causing terror and transforming the unwilling and unable to defend themselves.

she doesn't do it out of cruelty. she doesn't create out of cruelty. but neither is she sympathetic to the aversion people show to transformation. this isn't hypocritical, either; she changes herself, after all. it is a terrible hunger for knowledge that she believes can only be attained through experience; so how could she regret being more experienced now, even if it robbed her of innocence?

the halla are gentle creatures born of a gentle heart. she wasn't always as she is, even if there was always curiosity and ambition and hunger for knowledge. she wants to improve things, and that can only be attained through change, even if that change seems horrific to others.

in her eyes, the evanuris, to some degree, understand; that doesn't mean they do, but they are content to let her do her thing, to give her the tools to do more, to let her go as far as she can, to push her in that direction. that is why she sides with them. as much as she respects solas (as she says she does, in the letter), he doesn't understand, as the people often don't understand. they want to limit her; she doesn't want to be limited.

[hallamshivanas]

and if i want to replay datv with crow rook just because i want to see teia what of it

[hallamshivanas]

More Tevinter Nights at 2:30am because, well, I’m busy during normal daylight hours these days.

[hallamshivanas]

hel would never kill anders and while she disagrees with his methods (while not a particular fan of The Church neither is she on board with harming innocents) she fully supports mages being free. malcolm raised a mage rights defender, even if she's not a mage herself.

[hallamshivanas]

given teia's own moral code i imagine that would impact how she rules her house; i can't see house cantori under teia buying slave children as the arainai did with zev (freeing them and giving them the option to join their heroes is a different matter; she does see the crows as having saved her so why not extend that to others. if it's a manipulative move what of it). her own ideals are also probably instilled in their training (teaching them you don't kill the help unless they're also guilty for one. she says 'there are rules' and while viago says those are her rules, i think she'd extend them to her house). and i feel she is also more approachable and warm than the other talons tend to be. if one of her young ones saw her as a family, she wouldn't shun it. she does the same with caterina and the others after all.

it's not perfect by any means, however. the unhealthy competition (and environment that fosters it) and physical aggression continue existing as a means to prepare and harden their recruits. they still compete and try to kill each other (and her) and she'll deal with them accordingly (and at most be like 'aw such a shame i actually liked this one. anyways').

[hallamshivanas]

teia pokes at viago for always having his poisons on hand and testing everything before he eats, but they're crows; he is simply armed differently. she always has at least one blade within reach and quite literally sleeps with a dagger beneath her pillow as shown in eight little talons. doesn't matter how slutty the dress she's wearing she will have a dagger hidden somewhere (if nothing else you bet she'll have a dangerous hair stick ready to stab you).

and, like every good crow, she's also a very light sleeper. if she can afford to languidly wake up and linger in bed on occasion she will, but that's indulgence; she's always fully awake and ready to fight at the slightest disturbance. one does not become the youngest talon in history without drawing dangerous attention to herself, and she is not as careless as her carefree demeanor might suggest.

[hallamshivanas]

“No,” she said, crossing her arms. “Not until we boil some water.” Viago raised a brow. “Eight people were poisoned in this room.” “Then run your little tests to make sure it’s safe, but I refuse to look at another dead body until I’ve had my coffee.” --- As they left the kitchen, Teia felt like she was trapped in some terrible guessing game. Viago had brewed the coffee in silence and she couldn’t bring herself to ask which of the other Talons were dead.

i. the utter disregard and familiarity with death that there are eight bodies at the table and she's like 'but my coffee' ii. the complete trust in the master poisoner that she not only lets him test the water but lets him make her coffee and doesn't doubt for a minute that it'll be safe

[hallamshivanas]

thinking of how much ghil got along with the other evanuris. i need to unpack the andruil situation later but! the others! i wish we knew more about them.

elgar'nan clearly cares for her to some extent and they seem to get along pretty well — more than just 'we're the last of our kind let's stick together', almost brotherly. which makes sense because he'd let her create her fucked up little things and love her for it as long as he could use them to rule over everyone and she'd be happy creating her fucked up little things and letting he use them to rule over everyone. it's a win/win situation. for them. which is fun to consider if she had a positive relationship with solas before, given how much he and elgar'nan hate each other lmao

mythal is (?). i don't see her being on board with them all getting ghil to experiment on people and even before the blight stuff i just don't know if they'd get along. early on ghil is gentler and mythal is benevolence so maybe? but i think the vibes are off idk

falon'din is a nah. i think so is dirthamen; his whole thing is mystery and secrets, and she is a pursuer of truth and knowledge. more than that, the codex about some follower of dirthamen taking a form reserved to gods and being charged with high treason for it, and how the guy claims to have done so at ghilan'nain's urging, makes me think they weren't that friendly. i can easily see her tempting one of his to do something forbidden just to fuck with him unfortunately

not sure about sylaise; we don't know anything about sylaise other than about her exploiting people to make a palace for june. ghil might like june based on the crafts aspect, or they may look down on each other because her creations are living creatures while his are inanimate devices. if there's truth to that at all.

[hallamshivanas]

“It’s not the same,” Teia whispered. “The only crime these poor souls committed was to serve us.” “You’re getting bogged down by the details. Lera wasn’t a queen. These ‘poor souls,’ as you put it, weren’t templars. The who is immaterial, it’s the what that matters.” Teia frowned. “The who matters. There are rules. Unless guilty, we don’t kill the help. And cake should be sacred,” she added glumly. Viago straightened his gloves. “No, you don’t kill the help. Do you really think Bolivar, Emil, or even your precious Dante would think twice about slitting the throat of a witness—innocent or not?”

i personally dislike how veilguard approaches the crows in relation to previous games and favor a much darker and less heroic perspective, but i think teia buying into the romanticized version is really interesting (especially if we keep to how they're portrayed before). she is incredibly idealistic? very much the assassin with a moral code, known as a killer of cruel men, voicing that you spare the help unless they're involved with whatever their masters are doing.

but like viago himself argues — that's her thing, not a crows thing. they're assassins. most of them do not care who they have to kill in he way to get to their targets, she does.

it's all fundamentally tied with her origins, as one of the common people (a street orphan at that) who sees the crows as having taken her in, not exploited her. to her, they were a better chance in life than she'd have fending for herself in the streets without any proper means of defense. if the training is horrible and most kids don't make it, so what? they'd have no better chances on their own.

she's greatly desensitized to death and violence, even so (which is visible in how she throws in a quip about cake even while defending that the servants should have been spared); the abuse the young crows suffer is seen as a necessity to allow them to survive, not only in their line of work, but in general. teia sees what she has been through and what they all have been through as necessary and for their own good.

she greatly romanticizes the crows. to her, they are the unlikely heroic figures of antiva. they saved her. they take down terrible people. that they also take down not terrible people for the same price she handwaves as unimportant. she has principles she sticks to, and that to some degree she does think the others stick to (but even if they don't, ultimately that doesn't change her positive outlook on the crows or her [unhealthy] attachment to them as family. like i said before, it's not found family as much as it is unhealthy coping mechanism)

[hallamshivanas]

i think andruil may have cared more for ghil (or desired? there is an element of possessiveness there) than the other way around and that ghil might've gone along with it less out of feeling and more out of it was getting her places in this essay i will

[hallamshivanas]

inbox call maybe?

[hallamshivanas]

My Tevinter Nights art project 🍷🗡️:

—Eight Little Talons—

written by Courtney Woods

[hallamshivanas]

i think teia needs to hear that lucanis tried to flirt with viago by giving him a dagger and he thought it was a threat. it would brighten her day.

[hallamshivanas]

i know they couldn't say anything more direct bc zev can die in some world states not that it stopped them from bringing leliana back but anyway if teia is 28 (maybe a little older now? I don't know when eight little talons is in the timeline 🧍‍♀️) she was like growing up when zev was hunting down crows and imagine what a legend this man was among the younger crows.

[hallamshivanas]

inbox call maybe?

[hallamshivanas]

i think teia making the distinction between assassin and murderer (with murderer being 'unsavory') is fundamentally tied to her views of the crows in general and how in her head there is a familial element to their structure and how she sees them positively for taking her in even though there was no gentleness in any of it. there's an inherent need to make it more palatable to herself. subconscious for sure but existent nonetheless. she would paint the crows as antivan heroes; that doesn't mean they are.