#but Meredith is a facinating character who is a great foil to Cullen if people allow themselves to look look are her narrative closely

[saltyowlets]

Cullen in DAO sometimes gets stuck between presenting the perfect victim or a heinous villain when he isn't either.

No victim is perfect. How everyone deals with trauma is different but a majority is going to be ugly. There is no appeasing the masses, it's vicious and many times detrimental.

That is what Cullen was. He lashed out, fueled on anger and fear. It's understandable, but at the same time, it can still be inexcusable.

When I point out him being treated as the perfect victim, I don't just mean his representation of being a victim, I also mean excusing his words and actions as perfect responses. That the call for Annulment is a justified response.

It is not.

Both things can be true- Cullen is a victim, and he can be wrong. The abuse Cullen went through goes far beyond what we are seen and told. It is not a surprise he came out of it with delirium and mania. He is afraid, and he acts on fear- yet he can still be horribly wrong for calling for Annulment.

Victims can do bad things. Annulment is for the full-on massacure of the mages- many who are also victims to the same blood mages and demons. To call forth a death sentence to people who have lived their life in a cage- doomed to whatever outcome.

But here's the thing in which a few people tend to mistake about my own analysis of Cullen- I do not think it's out of character for him to call for it. Cullen was a young templar who suffered under the hands of blood mages and demons. All he knows is that fact.

I am not surprised he called for the Annulment. I don't blame him in that I see why someone would call for such a heinous rite. Yet I can still see he is wrong, that he shouldn't have demanded it in the first place.

I definitely understand the need to be defensive of his actions in part of how certain people like to villanize Cullen. But I think Cullen is a more interesting character when you are open to both loving and criticizing his character in the overall DA narrative.