sha-lyuzar

[sha-lyuzar]

I'm realizing there are 3 types of Dragon Age fans.

1) Gamers who play latest big flashy action game

2) UwU kissy dating and besties simulator

3) Interested in the sociopolitical and theological themes and thesis statements the series is historically known for

Veilguard is not made for fan #3. It is a very pretty game that has absolutely nothing it wants to say--to the point that what it says by saying nothing is often times pretty offensive.

[sha-lyuzar]

Kirkwall was always the best setting in DA. It's such a magnificent fucked up location chock full of social and political intrigue on top of historical intrigue, and the chthonic terror surrounding it from sea, sky, hills and depths.

DA2 is my least favourite of the three original games, but god damn Kirkwall was an amazing setting.

[sha-lyuzar]

Emmrich Volkarin 💀💚

[sha-lyuzar]

It is delightful to play a dwarf in datv. Harding's first personal quest was really fun as a dwarf. Just two surface girls bonding over their newfound enthusiasm for the Stone

[sha-lyuzar]

Loghain Mac Tir is my comfort character. It is not often a pleasant thing to admit, and my reasons are complex, and personal, but fundamentally what makes me so attached to him is how human he is. That kind of depth and complexity is what made me fall in love with Dragon Age in the first place. He’s not just a “noble hero” or an “evil villain,” but a fully realized person who embodies good and evil, and everything inbetween, who is shaped by his past and his deeply personal convictions, his flaws, his fears, his fierce love for Ferelden, and, most importantly his tragic mistakes, that lost him everything, and that is what makes him feel so real to me.

He doesn’t have an easy narrative arc. He’s not driven by simple greed, cruelty, or even by misguided idealism. He’s a survivor with wounds that never fully healed, and those wounds shape the way he sees the world and interprets threats. Every heinous decision and tragic mistake is a direct consequence of his loyalty to Ferelden and Maric, and his willingness to bear the burden of horrific choice. He has been bleeding for his cause since he was a child, and it has turned him into the same kind of cruel and cold tyrant He fought against in the first place, and watching him struggle to hold true to his values, and eventually abandon them, as his path grows darker and more isolating, is this profoundly tragic thing that to me is infinitely more compelling than a classic Hero's Journey.

What Loghain did in the Alienage is deeply disturbing and inexcusable. Using Tevinter slavers to control and exploit the elves is one of the darkest points in his character arc. It’s a choice that reveals just how far he’s willing to go to maintain control and secure his idea of Ferelden’s “independence,” even at the cost of his own morality, so He lets in a foreign power to abduct and subjugate the citizens he claims to be protecting. It unveils the extremes of his desperation and paranoia, because in his mind, he’s protecting Ferelden, but in reality, he’s perpetrating the very kind of oppression he once fought against. It is dark, it is horrific, it is unforgiveable, and that is the whole point.

He has to confront the devastation he’s caused, and he can’t simply brush it aside as a “necessary evil.”. If he joins the Grey Wardens, his path involves acknowledging these grave mistakes, taking responsibility, and finding a way to live with the guilt. There is no reconciliation for his actions, his fear and trauma may explain but never excuse what he did. There is no easy way out. Loghain is stained with the blood he shed forever. He has to live with having failed, with the compounded weight of his actions and regrets, and, if he joins the Wardens, he isn't even granted the mercy of a quick and clean death, and instead is exiled from the country he poured everything he had into.

And doesn't this resonate? Does this not perfectly reflect the difficult reality of being human? How people can be fiercely protective, deeply flawed, and driven by complicated motivations, and that these qualities make them more worthy of understanding, not less? Loghain’s arc speaks to me on such a deep and personal level, especially as someone who has been battling the demons of trauma. His story is a vivid reminder that trauma doesn’t always make us better people, but exacerbates our struggles and can lead us down dark paths. i see parts of my own struggles in Loghain, i understand his pain, his fear, the choices his past self would loathe him for, and the gnawing self-hate, regret and grief.

Trauma twists our intentions like that. Instead of guiding us toward empathy and understanding, it clouds our judgment, and pushes us to make decisions we later regret, and become versions of ourselves we hate. My reality of trauma has not been this character building experience, the way it is often depicted in media, but something harrowing and life-altering, that still poisons me, even years later. But seeing a character lose all tether to himself and get lost in his demons is a tale worth telling, and an experience that still grips me, even 15 years after playing DA:O for the first time. Seeing Loghain live through rock bottom in DA:O, and then, ten years later in DA:I find purpose and whatever semblance of peace is possible in his circumstance, is something that gives me comfort. It is deeply personal, and i keep this unforgiveable and irredeemable, this grief-stricken and regret-filled man, this complicated and multifaceted character deep in my heart.

There are spoilers for datv under the cut. Major spoilers about the end of the game. If you have not played through yet, please don't be tempted to look. i thought i would be fine with spoilers, but i am not. You have been warned.

All of this is rendered moot by the ending of datv. By a throwaway line. i have been spoilered by this online, and have not reached this point in the game myself, yet, but it leaves me feeling a lot of ways, and it hits me hard. It feels like everything i found relatable in his struggle, everything that made him so human, is suddenly taken away. If his actions weren’t truly his own, and he was being puppeteered by old gods magic, then what does that mean for the weight of his choices? It feels like a betrayal of everything that made up his character, a character who has grappled with his trauma and made terrible choices, yes, but ones that were driven by his own will and conviction, always.

The complexity of his journey, the depth of his remorse, and the struggle for a new purpose, all become overshadowed by this new twist. It threatens to erase the beautiful, painful, and human truth of what it means to confront one’s demons and seek understanding in the aftermath of suffering, what it means to reassess and take accountability for your actions and do the hard, dirty, and thankless work of bettering the irredeemable, bit by bit, piece by piece, so that one day you may draw a breath and feel just a bit of that weight eased.

But no, he was just a victim all along. He has no agency, his self-actualisation is lost on him, he was never responsible for himself. It feels like one of Dragon Age's most complex characters has been flattened down into cardboard.

[sha-lyuzar]

i hold infinite love and infinite critique for bioware in my body and that’s the duality of man

[sha-lyuzar]

can i just say i think one thing that pisses me off the most about datv is this sudden inclusion of technology that has never existed. canonically the most advanced technology they had was GUNPOWDER, over in par vollen. gaatlok. that was it! and now suddenly we have floating metal security watchtowers with search lights and amplified voices in tevinter. and "ancient elven magic" that powers these metal medieval fantasy robots. like. what? what??? THIS NEVER EXISTED. YOU CANT JUST SAY ANCIENT ELVEN MAGIC AND EXCUSE IT LIKE THAT. WE'RE NOT STUPID. THIS DIDN'T FUCKING EXIST

[sha-lyuzar]

Ok. If this boy doesn't show up after what just happened to my girl Lace, I will flip my lid. It was the same thing.

"Not Enchantment" no shit.

Also that was definitely the voice of a titan and I'm going to have to go back and play The Descent at some point after all, aren't I?

[sha-lyuzar]

i had an idea in my head of Faira being overwhelmed by the vastness of the world out there, after having only known the Necropolis all her life, but she's so competent and scrappy and pragmatic, and i'm so proud of my little grub girl

[sha-lyuzar]

i am... really not a fan of the darkspawn redesign. It completely does away with established lore. No more genlocks and shrieks, only neon-red hurlocks (that aren't called hurlocks and have a striking resemblance to Mass Effect husks) and ogres, the overexaggerated features and proportions immediately undoing all of the horror of the "living blight". The darkspawn have always had some semblance of a culture, they communicated, they wore weapons and armor, they had hierarchies and goals, and now they are indistinguishable mobs that spawn from red puddles. Mind you, i am only 5 hours into the game, and have only just reached Treviso for the first time, so there may be a later on explanation for the changes, but right now, as is, i... i kind of hate it. This does not really mean that the game is bad, but i have a hard time adjusting to the retconning and tone changes

[sha-lyuzar]

It’s me Rook, I’m the Dread Wolf speaking to you inside your brain. Listen to me, Rook, I set blighted elven gods free and it’s all your fault.

[sha-lyuzar]

Hey, I just want to encourage everyone to actually take the time to read the codex entries in The Veilguard! There's some wild new information in there.

[sha-lyuzar]

Very happy with the character creator. Finally i am able to make a character that matches my vision, and i am absolutely loving Faira Ingellvar's personality, somewhere between nihilistic optimism and pragmatic shrugs.

That said, recreating Lyria Sha-Lyuzar was an absolute pain and she looks nothing like herself

[sha-lyuzar]

i wasn't even able to select the Harding miniromance

first impressions of da:tv is that i can't believe those are the only choices they want. like i knew they said they were limiting different world states but i didn't think by that much

[sha-lyuzar]

The fact that there is no casteless brand is irking me unreasonably

[sha-lyuzar]

You know, it's criminal that Sten, a Qunari soldier, and Oghren, a dwarf of the warrior caste, never actually talked to each other about that. They're both from societies with rigid social structures and they're both trying to acclimate to Ferelden. It seems like prime banter material

[sha-lyuzar]

happy anniversary to whatever is going on in this show