#'he STILL wasn't entirely done trying to kill Varric'

[felassan]

More on the Varric deaths stuff, two, as well as on DAII Exalted March and DA:I -

"This expansion was going to be called Exalted March, and here, Varric was going to finally step out from the interrogation room so we could play in the present day, so to speak. It was also here that Varric - in a climactic confrontation new villain Corypheus, introduced in Legacy - was going to die. "So what I wanted to do with the expansion was: there's a lot of stuff we cut and I really wanted to put a bowtie on the Dragon Age 2 story," former lead writer David Gaider told me earlier this year while chatting about the creation of the Dragon Age world for a piece about maps. "It had the confrontation with Corypheus and the whole thing. We'd introduced him in a DLC, which I didn't want to do, but we did it, so I wanted to sort of tie that off. And I wanted to kill Varric because he was the viewpoint character and I'm like, 'This is his story, it needs to end with his death.' "He was the unreliable narrator, right?" he added. "I felt like it had to end with him. So we had this great moment where Corypheus is using the Red Lyrium and it's growing out of control, but [Varric is] a dwarf so he's a little bit immune, so he's able to do the Wrath of Khan Spock thing and get in close and destroy it. And he gets Corypheus enough so the party can take him out, but then he's dying from Red Lyrium poisoning so there's this nice moment with him and Hawke as Hawke says goodbye. And with his death, the story ends. And I felt that's appropriate for Dragon Age 2's arc." Exalted March, however, was never released. BioWare cancelled Exalted March to refocus the studio on new game Dragon Age: Inquisition and the move to new engine Frostbite. The expansion was "cannibalised", as Gaider put it, talking to me, and expanded to become Inquisition. Which is how Corypheus suddenly became the main villain in Inquisition, and how Varric managed to stay alive. It didn't stop Gaider trying to kill him again, though. "I tried to kill him in Inquisition," he told me. "I think mainly because I didn't get to do it in [DA2]. And everyone was like, 'But the Inquisitor isn't Hawke! It lacks the same meaning.' And I was like, 'Yeah, I guess you're right.'" Still, it was a difficult thing to let go of. "I was a little bit upset," he said, "and I remember I went and said - because they wanted to start work on Dragon Age 3 immediately - 'Well, you can make me do that, yes, and I will just be the guy in the meetings doing this [he makes a standoffish posture]. Or you can let me go home for a month or so, get this out of my system and grieve, and I will come back. And I swear, when I come back, I will be ready to go.'" He was true to his word, but he still wasn't entirely done trying to kill Varric. In March last year, Gaider revealed there were once plans for Corypheus to attack the Inquisition's mountain castle base, Skyhold. "The threat of Corypheus after Haven was never truly realised," Gaider tweeted. "An attack on Skyhold would have upped the ante. Maybe I could have killed someone finally... but instead, Corypheus remained a remote villain you chased but were rarely chased by. "By the way," he then added, "if you're wondering who I would have killed in Skyhold, given the chance, the answer is obviously Varric. That dwarf was meant to die in the (cancelled) DA2 expansion and escaped his fate despite having been in my crosshairs ever since." Varric survived again. "After Dragon Age Inquisition came out I'd already left the Dragon Age team," he told me."

[source]

what I'm reading, if I understood it right, is that Varric has survived death at least 3 times thus far.. (；・∀・)

[nightingaletrash]

The Fool, the Magician and the Star.

ahahahaha thank you friend!

The Fool: Where did Rook's journey begin? What were they doing before joining the Veilguard?

So she was in Treviso, fighting the occupation along with the rest of the Crows. In the Murder of Crows timeline, it had gone on for six years before Alessia launched her attack on the Antaam. Her friend and partner-in-crime, Amethyne, had been killed in action and Viago effectively sidelined Alessia in an effort to try and protect her; he didn't want her near Caterina and the Talons because of Crow politics, and he was concerned that Amethyne's death had upset her emotional balance so he put her on watch duty.

Naturally, Alessia was pissed as hell and took to analysing Antaam movements in the city so that she could prepare her own strike the next time they started moving would-be-slaves through the city. She prepared a killbox in the Drowned District, and slaughtered an entire patrol of slavers, rescuing the captives and pissing off every last Talon in the city.

Viago was pissed to high heaven because her actions ruined weeks of planning for a larger and more effective strike and she'd essentially signed her own death warrant with her recklessness. Fortunately, Varric was among the captives and he was so impressed with her abilities that he offered to take her with him. Teia suggested he make it a contract to appease Caterina, and Alessia was sent away thinking that Viago was angry about the ruined plans, not because he was afraid that the other Talons would expect him to kill her.

The Magician: What are Rook's thoughts on Solas? Do they change as the story progresses?

She's fully prepared to kill him if Varric can't talk him down - she starts out pretty certain that it's why Varric chose her. A Crow is for killing, which makes her the backup plan if talking fails. She's prepared for lies and deceptions... but she's not prepared for how those lies take shape. She confidently rebuffs his concerns about the gods because hey, she locked this guy in Fade Prison, she can do it again, and she's pretty damn confident on calling him out.

But then she falls for the one trick she really wasn't prepared for, and Varric gets her on the hook. As the game plays out, she's almost unconsciously seeking the scraps of his approval - she's getting the work done, she's making progress, and Solas becomes the guy to impress because he was so pissy with her at first, and she wants to prove him wrong.

But then Arlathan Crater goes down, and Solas saves her arse from Elgar'nan, and it warms her up to him a little. They have maybe their first earnest conversation and she twigs that he's still very much in love with Lyris, and that's when she first starts to think that maybe it'd be worth trying to change his mind. The fact that she then gets to have a conversation with Lyris where she learns about their daughter, Tala, who has drawn a picture for Alessia featuring herself, Alessia, Lyris and Solas all saving the world just adds to that feeling that she could still try to give the story a different ending.

Then Egg Boy goes and does a fucking betrayal, and she's pissed. She doesn't know what he deserves anymore, because as much as she wants to hurt him for what he did to her, Varric still encourages her to talk to him, Lyris is still hoping he can be saved, and there's a little girl who still believes in her father. Ultimately, saving Solas from himself becomes less about what he deserves and what Lyris and Tala deserve, and giving them the happy ending they want. She embraces the things she's learned from her friends and what her mother said to her before she left to become a Crow, and she finds the loophole.

In the end, Solas will always be a contentious spot for Alessia. Maybe one day she can forgive him, but in the immediate aftermath she'd be happy to never hear of him again.

The Star: When things get dark, what gives Rook hope?

Three things: firstly, Crow Training, secondly, friends and family, and thirdly, pure spite.

As a Crow (and particularly as the heir to House de Riva), Alessia was trained to withstand torture and horrific conditions in the name of silence and survival. Clinging to that training - don't feel pain, just act, don't let it touch you, withstand it, defeat it - has been the key to overcoming many difficult trials when things are bad. Don't feel it, just act.

And when Crow training doesn't help, it's her friends and family who pick her up and dust her off. They're her reason to keep going. It's why Solas' Varric trick was so pivotal in getting her to step up and do what had to be done. Having someone who believes in her unconditionally goes a long way for Alessia, and having that unshakable faith from another person keeps her going, even when that someone is gone.

And if that fails her too, then her final fallback is pure spite. She will figure a way out of the situation because fuck you, she's a Crow and a de Riva and no one tells her what to do. There's a reason she's Spite's favourite.

[felassan]

GamesRadar: "It felt like we needed to do something": How Varric Tethras went from nearly being left out of Dragon Age: The Veilguard to becoming a foundational character

Interview | Exploring the role of Varric Tethras in Dragon Age: The Veilguard with BioWare's creative director, John Epler

Excerpts under cut due to spoilers.

John Epler: "Varric is such a fan favorite, and has been part of Dragon Age since Dragon Age 2 – it felt like we needed to do something. At the end of the game, it's very clear that a chapter of Dragon Age is being closed, even as a new one is being started, and having Varric involved in the ending and that final beat in the way that he was felt right to us."

""While it may have "felt right" for Varric to be in Dragon Age: The Veilguard and factor into its ending in this way, says Epler, it took some time for the team to come to that conclusion. With such a long development cycle, the loveable dwarf wasn't even part of the story at one stage. "It's interesting, because in some of our earliest versions of what we wanted to do for Dragon Age 4, Varric was not actually involved. Varric was doing his own thing as the Viscount of Kirkwall," Epler says. "But I think especially as we got to the version of Dragon Age: The Veilguard that shipped, it felt very strange to have a story about Solas not also include Varric. For us, having them [Solas and Varric] exist in contrast throughout the story - obviously, with Varric being something existing entirely in Rook's mind - provides different ways of looking at the core theme, which is regret." As Epler explains, Varric is "not someone who does a good job of confronting his regret", whether that be in Inquisition when it comes to his love interest and crossbow namesake, Bianca, or with his brother in DA2. Rook, on the other hand, is forced to confront them, while Solas's regrets "drive everything he does." He's a character that "refuses to be happy, refuses to feel joy, because he feels it'd be a betrayal of his people, of what he's done". But as Epler adds, having Varric "be the kind of linchpin" around which all the regrets hinge "felt powerful". Varric may not be good at confronting his own regrets, but his death and role eventually pushes Rook to face theirs, and in turn, you can try to help Solas get past his own if you so choose.""

"Without a mark on your hand like the Inquisitor in Dragon Age: Inquisition, or an army you can bring together like the Grey Warden in Dragon Age: Origins, Rook is "just a person with a team", as Epler puts it, so you have to make sure that they're as ready as possible to face what's to come. [...] Epler says Varric felt like a natural character to juxtapose Solas. Acting kind of like "the angel and the devil on your shoulder", Solas - while not actually a devil - is the one who's more focused on the mission and goal of stopping the gods, while Varric constantly reminds you that your team matters and you need to take care of them first and foremost. The decision to kill Varric early on was partly fueled by a worry that people would find Solas "a little too sympathetic in his goals". From past experience, Epler says the team saw a lot of that with The Trespasser DLC, where many really wanted to help Solas and believed he was right. But he is going to end the world, after all, and once you realize the twist about Tethras' true fate, Varric serves to demonstrate that "Solas will sacrifice almost anyone or anything in pursuit of what he sees as the greater good." But even if he is willing to go to extreme lengths, Solas does still regret what happens to his old friend. In fact, Epler explains that he even finds it comforting to think that Varric is still out there in some form. "Varric's a complex character," says Epler. "He runs away from his problems, he likes to shade the truth, even to the people that he's working with. The Varric that you see, the Varric that Rook experiences, [are] the best parts of Varric that Rook remembers. It's just this mentor figure that's always there for them. And I think even Solas finds some comfort in knowing that there's still a piece of him out there, even though he knows that it's manipulation, it's not the real Varric."

""DA2 starts with a character death about 45 minutes in, when your siblings dies. And the feedback we got, which was very fair feedback is, 'okay, but I don't care, because I've known this person for like, 45 minutes'. So having Varric die at the beginning, originally that was it. He was going to die, and it was going to be this big, shocking moment," Epler says. "But part of the problem with making a game 10 years after the last one, and needing to make it so existing players – but also new players – can get in and feel a lot of the same things, is you can't bank on two games worth of built up memories, built up attachment, to make the death land. For a lot of players it would have been like, 'okay, but I've only known this guy for 45 minutes. So why do we care?'" In order to still have the death at the beginning of the game, the team eventually landed on the idea of his not-so-real presence in the Lighthouse in order to give players more time with Varric. "And that's the beauty of game development," Epler adds, "something that you start off with as a way to solve a problem actually becomes so core to the identity game.""

"Varric Tethras was originally brought to life by Mary Kirby, a veteran developer who has worked on the Dragon Age series for many years at BioWare. Sadly, she was part of the layoffs last year, but as Epler fondly highlights, Kirby wrote the vast majority of the conversations you have with Varric. "She was one of the first people we told 'Hey, so we're talking about killing Varric, you're okay with this, right?' Because at that time, she wasn't even on the project," Epler says. "But Mary was fantastic to work with, she and I worked [together in the past]. I was Varric's cinematic designer for Inquisition and for DA2. There are a couple of things that came up towards the end of the project that I had an opportunity to write. And it was lovely to remind myself how Mary had always written Varric, and how that character came together.""

[source]