#forgive his abusive father because of Ted's own daddy issues

[jamietwat]

I should be doing other things, but instead I'm typing out a long ass post because I know we talk a lot about the throuple implications in Mom City from Keeley and Roy putting their whatever was going on on pause to have their undivided attention on Jamie and stalk him when he took off on his own, Jamie bringing them both home and his mom totally outing that he talks about them both all the time, the side by side posters in Jamie's room (and Jamie pretending like he has to introduce them as if they're not clearly both on his wall and his mom doesn't know exactly who they are), Simon deliberately giving them a tour and showing them the posters and pointing out that Roy's the one player that's poster always stayed, and the whole walking off arm in arm in arm to go get drinks together

And yes all that, but also I don't think we talk enough about "Mommy, I'd like to introduce you to Keeley, and this hairy prick's Roy." Not "You remember Keeley, and this hairy prick's Roy"

No, it's very clearly established that this is the first time Georgie is meeting either of them. And like season 1 Jamie absolutely fumbled Keeley, but he was quite clearly serious about her and quite clearly already a momma's boy and while the Keeley/Jamie relationship certainly had its flaws, it also was strong in a lot of ways. And Keeley was clearly very involved in every aspect of Jamie's life in like a codependent he wanted her around all the time kind of way

And yet Jamie never brought Keeley around his mom before and the writers felt the need to establish that and that no, he's bringing Keeley and Roy home and introducing them to Georgie and Simon for the first time together. Keeley and Roy might be feeling like they're third wheeling Jamie and his mom's moment, but neither of them is third wheeling Jamie and the other or any less important to Jamie historically or currently

And for that matter, even when Roy makes a move to try to get back with Keeley, Jamie isn't in the room and yet his presence quite palpably is (I mean Roy's literally trying to talk things out and get back with her while on Jamie's bed) and that's the point when things turn from the setup that Roy and Keeley are on the path to getting back together into no, that's not something they can slip right back into even though the feelings are still there... And then, there's Jamie, interrupting but not really and really just sparing them both the awkwardness of it and it's like a relief that he's there to intervene

And it's not an oh look, here's Jamie, the obstacle to the romance and Roy's romantic rival that Roy's annoyed to have around like early season 2. It's way more of an actual triangle than the usual love triangle drama that kind of scene would be and there isn't weird tension and uncomfortableness between Jamie and Roy after or Keeley feeling weird being around them

No, they all three happily leave together arm in arm in arm to go drink together. And that (and the whole episode) is very much that Roy tries to help Jamie and fix whatever's wrong with him and it doesn't work. Then Keeley the senior Jamie expert steps in and tries to help him and fix whatever's wrong with him and it doesn't work either. And it's only when they're both there together with him (and with his mom but I'm going to get to that aspect still) that Jamie starts feeling better and anything works. And then Roy tries to fix things with Keeley and it doesn't work then things are so much more natural and uncomfortable once Jamie's back with them because basically the whole episode is look any pair on its own isn't the answer and isn't working on its own anymore because they all three care about each other and are inextricably tangled up in a good way instead of the toxic way it was back when Keeley was pouring coffees together and hoping that would avoid a huge fight

And back to the Jamie for some reason not having brought Keeley around his mom or even having FaceTimed with her with Keeley in the room like look at my girlfriend thing. We know that Jamie's dynamic with his dad is fucked up and he didn't want people knowing about it or the extent of before they'd witnessed it and it became kind of apparent. So if he didn't introduce Keeley to his family and kept her separate from Manchester, he didn't have to get into that or worry about her hearing the shit his dad said or seeing him the same way. And we know that Jamie's bravado is a whole thing and like yeah he is that full of himself but it's also a shield too

And season 1 Jamie doesn't really let that bravado slip outside of the scene with his dad that he didn't expect anyone to witness, for like three seconds with Roy when he admitted that he had a poster of him before immediately swerving to toasting to the idea of Roy dying, and the scene when he burned his boots and let his guard down just to end up transferred and dial the abrasive cockiness up more after

And even when season 2 Jamie let people behind the bravado, it was usually to try to get something. And I don't mean that in a manipulative way, I just mean like there was something he wanted that was a carrot to make him dial back the cockiness and open up. Like when he realized he'd fucked up his career and went to Keeley for help. Or when he went to Ted to try to get back on the team. Or when he started acting differently around the team to try to get them to stop shunning him (and obviously also to try to be a better teammate and whatnot but like them shutting him out was the push that got him to do it). Or trying to convince Roy to coach him too

And then there's season 3 Jamie who is starting to open up to people and drop the bravado just because he wants to or wants them around when he feels like shit. And then there's Jamie catching Roy and Keeley stalking him when he's taking off on his own to go be sad with his mom away from the team. And instead of getting mad at them or telling them to fuck off or asking what the hell they're doing, there's no conflict at all. It's just okay, come on then

Like sure neither of them knew what to say or do to help him, but he knows they're worried and he knows they're his go to people outside of his mom, so sure, why not come along? And he lets them both fully into the last part of his life they weren't in yet and brings them both along. And that's the point that it goes from I don't know what's wrong, I just know I feel like shit to sure come meet my mom and my stepdad (who we never saw Jamie mention in the show and who at least Roy looked surprised existed) and watch me sulk on top of my mom and complain about every single thing that's upsetting me without putting on any cocky act or turning any of it into a joke. He's next to Georgie's Jamie Tartt shrine and it could have been a Roy and Keeley awkwardly listening to him talk about how great of a player he is scene, but no

Instead, it's Georgie being Jamie's biggest supporter but not caring at all about how Jamie plays (in a good way) and Jamie being at his most vulnerable walls down level. And it's Roy and Keeley being the ones a little uncomfortable with that shift and awkwardly sitting there eating Simon's baking while watching this while Jamie seems fully comfortable with them being there for all of this and he isn't even the one that suggests them going off somewhere else for a while

And anyway, I didn't mean to ramble for this long but I just think that says a lot more than if Keeley had been around Georgie before or if they'd been introduced in some happy cocky this is my mom and this is all the pictures of me she has up because I'm such a star kind of scene

[toxicroyjamie]

your tags literallyyyyyy…. like at times Ted does think Jamie is his son and Jamie does think Ted is his dad but only in the most toxic and unwell way possible. interpersonally they are like incapable of having a functional relationship because their baggage is so wildly incompatible. Jamie (unintentionally) triggers Ted’s panic attacks because Ted is displacing his anxiety about Henry onto Jamie, and Ted (unintentionally - maybe?) pushes Jamie to reach out to his abusive father because he is projecting his need to forgive his own father onto Jamie. and Jamie really struggles with Ted’s authority specifically because of his relationship with his dad; he can’t trust him in season one and he can’t stand to displease him in season three. they’re not father and son they’re just like a daddy issues feedback loop.

This is EXACTLY it you laid this out perfectly thank you

[lunar-years]

I could possibly have stomached James being back and forgiven apparently, if it wasn't for the casually dropped in statutory rape, what on earth?? The writers were probably trucking along with their "everyone deserves forgiveness" train, meanwhile anyone with a jot of common sense had air raid sirens screaming "DO NOT LET THAT MAN NEAR JAMIE". I'd have been angry with the forgiveness side anyway (we see no signs that James is trying to be a better person or even that hes not going to try and beat the shit out of his son again, for all we know thats a court mandated rehab), but I could have sort of understood it. Adding in that fun little fact made James go from terrible horrific abuser to just completely unforgiveable.

honestly i completely agree with you. I know this is a very divisive arc and there were people who genuinely loved where they took it because it resonated with them in some way, especially for some people who have been through similar experiences and appreciated the recognition that someone like James could successfully change. I really try to accept and understand fans who have that opinion and I want to be very clear that I both recognize addiction is a disease and think there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to or actually forgiving your abuser. Each situation is different! People suffering from addiction can absolutely recover! Individuals need to do what is right for them in their real actual lives, etc.

That said, the parts I loathe about the Jamie & James arc, from my own personal opinion, are:

any sort of relationship Jamie and James may have moving forward post-canon is inherently a complex one, but the writers did not address the conclusion of the arc complexly. At all. Instead it was "oh everything conveniently worked out and here they are happy and together" wrapped up in a 10 second flash-forward which is just...no.

there is absolutely no evidence that James' violence stems directly from his addiction. there is nothing to say a sober James isn't every bit as abusive as a drunken James. There is no indication that Jamie isn't putting himself back into a situation that is downright unsafe, or that he isn't at risk of coming into harm and being deeply hurt all over again. there is nothing to say James hasn't tried rehab before, and relapsed.

James never apologizes or owns up to his actions onscreen.

Jamie's decision to forgive his dad comes at a time when he's in a very vulnerable place mentally, having just come off a canonical depressive episode. He consults no one about forgiving his father apart from Ted, who is quite literally the worst person on the show he could have consulted (no offense, Ted, it's just that the man is incapable of being objective when it comes to Jamie and the father&son of it all). The decision isn't being made in a healthy state of mind and Jamie hasn't rallied a support group around him before taking the leap. From what we see on screen, he seemingly doesn't tell anyone that he's going to visit his dad in rehab.

there's a way that all of this can make sense. I can make sense of why Ted, with his own heaping helping of daddy issues, would give Jamie the advice he does. I can see why Jamie (again, in a vulnerable place) would take it! why he decides the right thing to do is to reach out to his dad! I can see him going to visit. I can imagine that visit going well or going poorly, can see James' stint in rehab being mandated, or also him checking himself it. But at the end of the day, those scenarios are all imagined! none of that nuanced context is provided on the show. Rather, the presentation and messaging are hasty and in my person opinion, flat-out dangerous. They lead the casual viewer to read Ted's advice as good (it categorically isn't), and Jamie as Doing the Right and Responsible Thing, when it's a hell of a lot more complicated that that.

it is also weird and complicated to have Jamie take Ted's advice over his mum's, who in the same episode, mind you, told him James was never ever going to change. again, we can jump through hoops to make sense of it, but we shouldn't have to.

there's absolutely a pattern of abuse being weirdly minimized on ted lasso/victims forgiving their abusers and i think that's gross. you can't claim to be a comedy show that dares to tackle real, tough issues in one breath and then expect us to laugh off abuse (Jane/Beard) in the next. Sometimes it's like they change what kind of show they want to be scene by scene, lol.

as you point out, in my opinion it is completely batshit on the writer's part to have introduced "btw Jamie's dad, who we've previously established beats him and verbally abuses him, ALSO proxy raped him when he was 14!" in the same season in which you plan to have Jamie forgive said father (with next to no buildup or context) just a few episodes later. Like, yes, let's add even deeper layers to Jamie's tragic backstory before we wash it away in feel-good reunion tosh! just, ew. what on earth were they thinking.

So all in all, I think the arc could have been successful if the writers had known where they were going with it from the beginning of the season and given it the kind of care that sort of storyline demands. However they didn't do that, and the end message is incredibly harmful as a result.

[masterthespianduchovny]

I’m going to be honest: I dislike Nate right now.

And that’s perfectly fine.

I understand that this show loves to redeem people, however, as I said in another post, you can only redeem someone if there are negative feelings and/or you believe that person wronged someone or whatever. If you have positive feelings and excuse what they did, what exactly are they being redeemed for?

Despite loving Rebecca’s character, when I rewatch season one, I don’t like her at times. I dislike a lot of what she did back then. It doesn’t matter that I know she tells the truth eventually, the stuff she did was still fucked up. I’m not going to preemptively excuse her actions because I know the end goal.

Take Jamie for instance, his behavior was not okay. We know why he behaves that way, but it still wasn’t justified. We are still allowed to dislike him and what he did then. We talk about the negative effects of the bullying Nate received from the players, yet some try to excuse Nate’s bullying and his actions?

Wrong is wrong. Jamie being verbally abused by his dad didn’t justify how he treated others just like how Nate’s father (and bullying by others) is emotionally abusive doesn’t justify Nate’s behavior.

Although we understand the context, Nate IS being a fucking backstabbing asshole right now. Some may hate to hear that, but this isn’t an unfair opinion or unflattering light of him. This is exactly how he’s behaving.

There are some who has a ton of sympathy for Nate, but I’m not one of them. Please believe, I do hold some sympathy for him, but I have a limit.

So here’s reasons why Nate is on my shitlist and I’ll wait until he’s actually redeemed to forgive him.

1. Calling Rebecca a shrew. It’s not the fact that he literally called Rebecca this, but that he immediately verbally attacked the woman. We can say, “oh no, she’s the owner so he had reasons to think…”

No, Nate literally attacked Rebecca for no reason at all. She had little to no interaction with him and has never disrespected or harmed him in anyway, yet he has these intense feelings of dislike in the moment based off what exactly?

Nate attacked Rebecca because she is a woman. If you disagree, what other reason it might be? The reason I believe it was due to her gender is because she’s been defanged so to speak. So he doesn’t fear her like he used to. But Nate also practices in casual misogyny ie his shoe remark to Rebecca and Keeley. That may not seem like a big thing, but how is that an involuntary response??? With him believing he got fired, he doesn’t wait for answers, he immediately attacks her. And I had to ask myself, would he have done this with a man? With someone like Rupert? No fucking way. Nate can’t even directly challenge Ted who is a ray of sunshine, but attacks someone who he literally ran away from in fear in the pilot. Although Nate respects power, he respects male power the most. He skipped over Ted and Beard and went straight towards Rebecca. The fact that this even happened has always been disturbing to me. And Nate is fucking lucky that he hasn’t said any of his comments to old Rebecca (not age, but personality. 🥺) because she would have fired him. Only due to her relationship with Ted and him getting to let her guard down and find her old self that she frowned and shrugged Nate’s comments off. Most bosses at the very least would’ve talked to Nate and he didn’t get even that.

2. Projecting his daddy issues onto Ted. I understand that nate is going through some tough shit and has been for literally decades, however, that doesn’t mean make someone your stand in dad because they were nice and kind. Ted treats Nate like he does the other coaches, but Nate wants a special and unique relationship that will never exist. Ted is not his father and he didn’t ask for the job or the responsibilities.

I understand that people go through shit and latch onto those who made the rough times easier. I get that. However, all this animosity, scheming, and resentment because Ted isn’t giving the attention he wants. That fucking unfair to Ted. He didn’t ask or sign up to be Nate’s father figure. Yet he’s being punished for not being something he never wanted to be. Never even thought about it.

And because I’ve seen/partially experienced this shit, people getting mad at you for not being who they projected onto, it makes me upset at Nate. Because people like this really do become resentful and manipulative and that is not okay despite their own hurt that they’re dealing with. Why does the person you projected on have to suffer for something they’re unaware of and have no obligation to fulfill?

Nate isn’t just trying to blow up Ted’s professional career, he’s doing it via one of the cruelest ways: using his mental health against him. Thereby exploiting Ted’s trust in him.

Ted has literally changed Nate’s life for the better and rather than have a man to man talk with him, he cowardly tries to sabotage Ted in one of the worst ways imaginable.

3. His cognitive dissonance about how coaching works!!!

This seriously irritates me because, on some level, Nate knows that the very system he’s criticizing is how it works across ALL team sports and with reason.

He wants to be a damn head coach soooo bad—does he think ideas, plans, plays, etc only comes from head coaches???

What does he think assistants are there for?

For those who aren’t familiar with sports and coaching, literally every team sport has a head coach and then assistants under them. These assistant typically specialize in a given thing.

In American football, I believe there are like defensive coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, etc. there are coaches who watch a lot of tapes to learn the opposition and how to make plays to hold them exploit their weakness and tailor plays around that.

Like on the professional level there are so many types of coaches and, hell, not all of them want to be head coaches. Some of the greatest coaching minds aren’t head coaches.

For example, the American basketball team the Chicago bulls fired their coach Doug Collins in like 1989, I think. He was a good coach, but one of his assistant coaches had a basketball IQ out of this world. Doug refused to listen to him, but management fully supported this assistant coach. Now the other assistant coach they were grooming to take over, Phil Jackson, if you’ve heard of him, DID listen to this basketball genius. So much so that when he became head coach after Doug was fired, he continued to implement The Triangle offense that came from this basketball genius, which Phil was known for until he retired.

Nate’s upset that Ted gets all the credit for if they win, he does realize that Ted also gets all the blame for if they lose. Ted has always highlighted his coaching staff and everyone who helped him. He has always stressed that he wouldn’t be where he is without them. And when he loses, he takes full ownership. He doesn’t pass the blame at all.

Does Nate seem like someone who’d take ownership for losing?

Does Nate seem like someone, at this moment, who’d appropriately give credit to assistant or anyone else who helped him?

Would he even listen?

What makes Ted a great coach is that he gives others opportunities to step up to the plate and if/when they succeed, he allows them to shine.

Ted sees the fuller picture, for the most part, and knows how to address his weaknesses and who’s stronger than him in what area. He realized that the team needed a presence like Roy on the team. He knew he needed someone like beard who could absorb insane amounts of knowledge. He saw that Nate had potential coaching ability.

But Nate doesn’t understand the importance or value of this. He also doesn’t understand how instrumental Ted’s philosophy has been in transforming the culture of the team. That this is also a reason why the team is playing better.

So like, yeah, I’ll forgive Nate when he’s redeemed. But these three things are what really irks me about him. Just because I understand why he is acting this way doesn’t mean I have to excuse it when he’s being a dick to others, complaining about shit only due to his ego, and doing fucked up shit like leaking someone’s mental health struggles so he can gain an advantage over them.

Does he think that if Ted leaves/gets fired that he’s getting the job??? I mean hopefully whatever he has going on with Rupert works out (before it inevitably goes wrong) because this isn’t going to turn out how he thinks it will.

[ckerouac]

I've had some time to let the finale sink in (fuck was that a great ep, and a great season) and while I stand by with and agree with Beard's 'I'll headbutt you, Nate' *glowers* and think he's absolutely being a shit... I understand Nate.  I get it.  He's letting some destructive tendencies make choices he wouldn't make clear headed - and I've made some of those same choices in the past.

So while it's not really a defense of Nate... I get it.

Daddy issues play such a big role in Ted Lasso - from Ted dealing with his father's suicide, Rebecca dealing with her father's infidelity, Jamie dealing with his father's abuse, you also have Nate dealing with his father's disinterest.

All Nate wants is validation from his father.  He's desperate for it.  And we've all been there - there's always someone important to us who we want to cheer us, tell us they're proud, beam a bit when we share our accomplishments.  We have people in our lives who we want to be proud of us, and Nate desperately wants that from his father.  But as we've seen, he doesn't get it.  And I would argue that the narrative shows us that he'll never get it, for whatever reason.  Nate's father is either uninterested or incapable of giving Nate the validation that he needs to see himself as a valuable person.

And so what does he do?  He transfers that yearning for validation to the person in his life that has shown an interest in validating him - Ted.  Ted, whose default is support, whose worldview is to 'make these boys better, win or lose', who hands out words of affirmation that Nate yearned to hear easily and without reservation. 

But then Ted deals with a crisis of his own. 

And where Nate fucks up, and where I've personally fucked up in the past which makes looking at Nate's story like looking into a mirror of some of my worst and most regretted choices in my past, is his jump from 'This person I admire is distracted' to 'This person I admire is not paying attention to me because they think I suck' to 'This person I admire is FUCKING ABANDONING ME why aren't you paying attention any more??'.  It's the wrong assumption, but Nate who so desperately craves validation sees anything less than positive and constant validation as rejection. 

And the kicker... he's not safe to rail against that rejection from his father, because there would be repercussions that Nate doesn't want to deal with.  But Ted... Ted is a safe harbor to unload that anger on.  Ted, whose default is support, whose worldview is to 'make these boys better, win or lose', who hands out words of affirmation that Nate yearned to hear easily and without reservation... Ted is safe to unload that anger on.  To give voice to all those years of anger at his father, because Ted took on a father figure role to him at work. 

It certainly wasn't helped by whatever Rupert was whispering in his ear.  And honestly, while I think Rupert always has shitty motives, he doesn't even have to be whispering shitty things to Nate to push him over the edge.  Nate is primed to take whatever Rupert is saying to the logical extreme because of that anger.  All Rupert has to do is say 'You did well, you should be more in charge' and Nate is primed to jump to 'I SHOULD BE IN CHARGE'.

He's so desperate for validation - positive or negative - at this point from ANYONE that he kisses Keeley and tells Roy and when Roy doesn't react with anger, he's furious.  Roy's angry with everyone!  Be angry with me!  Show me you see me as a person!  But Roy, bless him, gives him an easy forgiveness because it was obviously a mistake, which is growth for Roy.  But Nate sees it as confirmation that yet again another person doesn't see him.  He wants Roy to see him as a threat, or be angry, or do something to validate that he's important enough to be either an asset or an opponent.  Nate again assumes the worst - that everyone sees him as unimportant. So he’s going to punch down where he can, and lash out where he can’t.

And I hate that I've done this myself.  It's like looking into a mirror of all my worst tendencies.  I've taken out anger and mental health anguish on friends who didn't deserve it because they were a safe place for me to direct that anger.  I've let small problems fester, which then lets any one suggest anything and I'll believe my own bullshit.  And I've let my brain assume the worst in people's intentions, when the reality is much more mundane.

Ted says to Dr. Sharon that he goes through life assuming that everyone is having a hard time, and he treats them accordingly.  Because life is hard.  Nate is currently assuming that everyone is going through life having an easier time than he is and he is unfairly being held back, and he's treating everyone accordingly.

Nate should've sat down with Dr. Sharon.  Nate desperately needs a third party to smack some sense into him and help him see what's really going on with his anger.  But sometimes before you can see that clearly, you end up hurting the ones you care about. 

I don't want to be Nate, but I see where I've been him in the past.  So I look forward to his redemption arc, because like so many of the things in the show, it helps me believe that I can have that redemption arc too.

[trulycertain]

Alistair’s Parentage, and why I go a bit Tru Smash

OK, it’s time to talk about why I aggressively dislike the “Alistair’s bloodline” retcons and how they come up in the comics. *sigh* I do try to keep this a positivity blog, but I thought as character arc analysis it might be worth saying. I’ll just thank @aphreal42, @celeritassagittae, @withthebreezesblown, @nanahuatli, a few others. I know we’ve talked about this.

*coughs, shuffles papers* Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Sorry again about the... everything.

On Maric

I was frustrated to see the centering of Maric in the comics, and mention of the hunt for him in Inquisition. It’s something that happens even if you’ve kept Alistair a Warden. And this is my question: Why?

I mean, why should Alistair be hunting for the father who couldn’t be bothered to raise him, when it’s not going to save Ferelden or Thedas? Yes, there’s some vagueness about it, an unrealistic dream of “maybe Maric can go on the throne and be better at it than me,” but that just makes it look like he hasn’t been allowed to learn anything or adapt as king, that he’s still desperately running from it, that he’s still reduced to his bloodline rather than his own choices and personal growth. 

We’ve had this arc of him desperately trying to abdicate responsibility of any kind; we had it in Origins, when he was twenty and green. It’s been ten years. Often, smart, perceptive people like Alistair grow rather a lot in ten years, despite or even because of their own fears.

So we’re right back to the daddy issues. And back to the bloodline. Healing is not always a linear process, but it cannot, by definition, go backwards and plonk you right back to the progress you’d made ten years ago. That’s not healing, and it’s not an arc - it’s a circle. Narratively, it’s not a very interesting circle, either. 

The frustrating thing? BioWare’s story folk can do realistic, beautiful “healing is not linear and sometimes people have days where they look back and want to undo everything because oh god what if they got it wrong” arcs about parentage. See Dorian’s or Hawke’s. Both of those have some big issues (I will never, for instance, be comfortable with how much you can hide from Dorian, or how heavily you can push him towards reconciliation, and have issues with that being a player choice at all), but they’re far more emotionally genuine and allow for nuance. More on that later.

Why do Maric’s growth and arc, considering he’s basically been dead for nigh-on fifteen years by the time of the Silent Grove comics, have to come at the expense of Alistair’s?

And why do we assume Alistair needs dragon blood to be awesome, when he’s been awesome pretty much forever for reasons of his own choosing?

(And OK, this one just bugs me for petty reasons: why does Maric have a less-fun version of Alistair’s self-deprecating humour in the novels? (Though all right, quite fond of the bit about falling off horses; forgive the nested brackets.) There’s a clear “like father, like son” thing there, but they met... what? Twice? Three times? I’m just fascinated by a fantasy world where there exists an “awkward quips” gene, because I must have it in spades.)

On Fiona

Fiona herself is a mid-tier character I don't mind. She has some interesting aspects but we don't see enough of her for me to have a strong opinion. Even the novels are a bit half-baked and inconclusive on her arc.

Fiona as a character with difficult choices to make and ambiguous, pragmatic motivations? Yeah, OK. She’s not one of my favourite DA chars, because she barely appears and unlike Maric, we’re not given much after-the-fact canon, dialogue and extra codices on her (*sigh*, because Daddy Issues are always more important), but she works. Fiona as a Very Special Warden Who Got Blight-Cured and another aspect of Alistair’s "well, he can't just be normal" story? Goodness no. It does both characters a disservice.

The only aspect that interested me with Alistair’s king-as-father relationship was the class stuff and the terror of responsibility. Other than “a fascination with magic” (which I find way more interesting as something he developed himself, as a non-mage but one with basic empathy and a curious mind), Fiona's motherhood hasn't really contributed much to his arc. The deep loneliness was there already. Yes, he has one more person who let him down for at the time seemingly justified reasons. OK. We’ve heard that... a lot of times already.

So Fiona, who already had a serviceable story arc of her own, ends up with it partly centred around Alistair’s for... reasons? I guess? in order to prop up his story, but not to do it in any way that really affects it or offers closure and just makes a hash of hers?

Narratively, I simply don't get why he has to be her kid, or be a half-elf. My interest is in how utterly bloody ordinary he is, because that's what makes him special. Both the "my bloodline is ultraspecial because Maric" and "my bloodline is ultraspecial because Fiona" stories bored me equally. He for all intents and purposes still looks human, and his story already has a pretty big focus on oppression. There’s no reason to pile “have we also mentioned half-elf and abandoned by one more person” on top of it. It’s just... overseasoning.

On Alistair

For me, the entire appeal of Alistair’s arc was that he made himself. His pain and his abuse were a major part of his story, but he chose strength. He chose to centre himself around being a Warden, around helping people. Someone who went through that could have easily wanted to watch the world burn, but he didn’t. He is not his parents, or his blood. That's not why his story is interesting.

Growing up, Alistair’s most formative influence wasn’t his parents; it was the lack of them. Or of family in general. 

If you want to pick major figures in his life, I suppose Maric could be one of them. Fiona? No, he isn’t even allowed to know she exists.

The formative influences we’re given, ones he remembers and mentions and seem to have imparted lessons:

Duncan, the almost-father he idolises, and the first person to believe in him

The idea - rather than the reality - of his mother, a serving-maid whose death he blames himself for; he clings to the idea she would have loved him, hence the amulet

Eamon, who was the nearest thing he had to a father and left him, which clearly affected him, and who continues trying to use him, albeit maybe with some real concern in there

Isolde, who helped seal that he was a dangerous tool or leverage, not a person, and started the chain of events that led to the Chantry

Teagan, who was ultimately ineffectual but made him hope for more, and was one of the few sources of kindness in his life

The Chantry bullies, perhaps

Goldanna, who reinforced that “you’re nothing but an inconvenience” mentality and was his last hope of a loving family

The Wardens, who were the nearest thing he had to a family

The people he meets during the Blight, the Warden in particular but definitely Morrigan, Leliana, Zev and the dog, who all make him question different aspects of himself and broaden his horizons a little

There are a ton of stories to tell there, and certainly, the Warden and their relationship with him - good, bad, indifferent - gets the spotlight, as do Eamon and Teagan. Heck, even Cailan gets a look-in, and Duncan has his moment. So why, ten years later, are we back to the twin spectres of Maric and Fiona?

Look... making an abused, neglected kid still be defined and unable to get away from the parents that walked out of his life, and not letting him have his own story? I don't know, that... bugs me. To put it mildly. OK, I’m probably overstating it and drawing parallels where there shouldn’t be, but it does rather feel like that’s the case. This way, he's never allowed progress, growth or agency. And I just... can't. I can't enjoy a story like that, it's too bloody sad and cheap.

He was an neglected kid who was told, over and over, that he deserved the bare minimum. When you've had no love at all, even a half-hearted grain of it is enough. And that has defined his story so much, but there are other stories to tell with him; one of the reasons I like him is his complexity. I want it to stop defining his story. He shouldn’t have to be hunting that family spectre. It may be something that still hurts him, which would be realistic enough, but it’s not all he is, and it’s not what he is to Thedas.

We have so many stories out there where kids are defined by difficult parents. We have so many reconciliation storylines about the sins of families being forgiven, or accepted. (See also: Dorian’s story, depending on how you play it, and definitely Hawke and Leandra’s. I could write a whole meta post on those.) 

How about some counter-narratives? Maybe the world needs more “Sometimes family isn’t a matter of blood, and sometimes your parents didn’t do enough and it’s OK to walk away from the unanswered questions. You’re not broken or static, you still have stories to tell, and you can still grow” arcs. Because life isn’t a Hallmark card, blood doesn’t equal love, and, to quote Dorian on this one, “Sometimes love isn’t enough.” That could be a healthier, more realistic kind of fiction, but also a more interesting one.

...OK, now I’m getting off-track.

tl;dr: I am totally with Alistair that his bloodline is the least interesting thing about him. You go guy.