#I love Mahanon and Nadasa.

[dellamortethelesser]

Nadasa Thorne is so important to me as someone who’s been cradling Mahanon Tabris to his chest as his main Hero of Ferelden for two years. Veilguard gave me a perfect timeline to finally critically examine what Mahanon looks like down the line, two decades removed from the Fifth Blight.

Mahanon’s role was always, to me, a critical examination of the “perfect victim”; not only was Mahanon an imperfect victim in every way (angry, reactive, often vindictive, an avenger more than not) but he was also 20, trans, and had no real guidance after the worst was over. When a person who made hard, gutting decisions for the sake of their own survival is then granted a position of power and authority and no further guidance, he’s not going to start making better choices. And I didn’t want him to—he was never supposed to BE the sort of person who emulated abject goodness. I wanted his story to be gritty and real to ME.

Finally, though, I can pull back and examine what that does to someone cyclically. Nadasa was 16 when Mahanon conscripted him; ten years before the events of Veilguard, right around the events of Inquisition kicked up. Mahanon was the legendary Hero of Ferelden, but through Nadasa’s eyes I’m finally allowed to see the man he has become and always was, apart from and outliving his own myth.

Mahanon had no mentor example to rely on and so his only blueprint was his father. Nadasa ended up with blurred lines for their relationship; Mahanon was mentor and myth, father and legend and friend all at once. There was no clear distinguishing line between any of these things—and there should have been. Mahanon isolated Nadasa, unintentionally, due to his own PTSD, and triangulated him against other Wardens because he thought they couldn’t be trusted.

He instilled Nadasa with a strict “us vs them” mentality (a combination of survivor’s guilt and a belief that Duncan only wanted warm bodies to throw at the darkspawn) and, in tangent with his constant pushing of responsibility onto Nadasa that he wasn’t ready for, made Nadasa someone aloof and apart even from other wardens. He had no real support system outside of him: all Nadasa had was rank he hadn’t earned and social clout that came from being the apprentice to the Hero of Ferelden.

When Mahanon left for his Calling—where he did not say goodbye and gave Nadasa the responsibility of mailing off his farewell letters—Nadasa had nothing left. Mahanon saw himself as a paragon of what a Grey Warden should be, but not as a good man or a good politician. He wanted Nadasa to be all of those things, but with only Mahanon as an example, Nadasa could only ever turn out to be just like him.

The narrative arc of Veilguard puts Nadasa into a position where he can have that team and that support and find a way to lead them. But when I explore his arc outside of the context of being Rook, all he has is a legacy unaddressed. He can either keep carrying Mahanon’s because no one else will—because he loves Mahanon even if he doesn’t understand him, because nobody knew Mahanon better—or he can let it go and be the man that Mahanon wanted him to be rather than the one Mahanon made him to be.

Nadasa Thorne can perpetuate the cycle or break it. I’m really glad to see that I can have that with my two wardens.

[dellamortethelesser]

praise heavens! I am briefly freed from my Andrea madness to play my warden. Oohhh Nadasa Thorne here I come :’)