#given cullen a redemption arc but only after someone punches him in the face

[jewishzevran]

look upon the Light so you may lead others here through the darkness

After the Herald of Andraste has some choice words for him, Cullen and Leliana have a talk about faith. [ao3]

A/N: I originally published a different version of this, which was less specific to my canon and took place in Leliana’s quarters. I have deleted it, but kept the title of the piece for the update. I like this version a lot better.

The Herald frowned at Cullen, and spoke with a tone that he couldn't quite place. "But... the Templars have served the Chantry for ages.”

“And in that time, they’ve come to take the Order’s services for granted–" Before he could continue, the Herald made a disgusted noise and rolled her eyes, before turning and walking away. 

"Wait where are you going? What's the matter?"  

She wheeled on him. "Seriously? After everything, that's your reason for leaving?"

"You're a Dalish elf, what do you know of the chantry?"

The Herald blinked, and her mouth curled into a snarl as her hands balled into shaky fists. She crossed back to Cullen and stood inches from him, her anger letting her tower over him despite her stature.

"How dare you. Are you so selfish and blind that you don't think it affects us? You think we were all born out of holes in the ground completely isolated? I grew up in Kirkwall. I know plenty of the Chantry, and their supposed peacekeepers. What do I know of the Chantry? What do you know of peace? You wield fear and cruelty like a slavemaster cracks a whip and expect your charges to survive unscathed? If you cage a dog and beat it for years how can you be surprised when it bites? And your "harrowings?" You take young mages, barely old enough to be adults and send them into the Fade with no warning, no training, no advice and expect them to fight demons? If they fail, you kill them, without so much as blinking. Do you write letters of condolences to their families? Do you even remember their names? And if you decide that one of them isn’t fit for the trial, you hold them down and forcibly remove their emotions! Have you not once considered how abhorrent the idea of a tranquil actually is? How egregious threatening people with psychological torture is? And don’t even try to justify it with “it’s for their own good”, whose good? I've heard stories that some poor families promise their children to the Order from BIRTH. Preying on poor and vulnerable families so their children can be groomed to hate an entire subset of the population? Discouraging circle mages from having relationships in case they have mage children? Any children born regardless are ripped from their mothers and given to a chantry orphanage to raise and then recruit as Templars. The most frequent cause of death in circles is suicide, did you know that? Do you care? I had friends in Kirkwall that were raped and beaten, and it doesn’t matter that you didn’t personally participate, you were silent while others systematically abused their charges. The Chantry doesn’t make peacekeepers or protectors. It makes soldiers. You say Anders started a war, but you never even thought about the alternatives. It wasn’t ‘start a war or maintain peace’ it was ‘rebel or spend a lifetime in slavery and enduring abuse at the hands of our oppressors’!  And you would kiss their feet in servitude."

She stalked off, then turned round, stalked back and punched him square in the jaw, with a resounding crunch. The force of the blow sent him staggering back several paces. 

"What do I know of the Chantry, shemlen? I know they massacred my entire people in the name of your God. Andraste spit on your skills being taken for granted. You want to be part of the Inquisition? To work side by side with mages? You need to do a lot of fucking soul searching about why you're really here, Commander Rutherford."

The Herald was crying as she walked away, wiping angry tears from her eyes.  Cullen was left standing dumbstruck. He spent several minutes quietly fuming. 

Maker, she can throw a punch.

His jaw was going to bruise and he could feel it. Then he started thinking about what she said and every angry word attached itself to a memory. He headed to the training grounds. Sword drills would hopefully clear his thoughts.

What do you know of peace?

He thought back to Kinloch. To the words he spoke to Nina Cousland. He begged her to slaughter anyone she saw in case they were possessed.

He thought about psychological torture and the screams and pleas of mages undergoing the Rite of Tranquility being abruptly cut off as that blankness took over their faces. 

He thought about his lessons as a boy, the pride in his teachers' voices as they spoke of the glory of the Exalted Marches and never used words like "massacre" or "genocide". How the elves deserved it. How it was their fault for being savages that denounced Andraste. 

He thought of the mothers who cried and begged when their children were taken to Circles. He thought of the mages that had panic attacks before their harrowing. He thought of the mages he'd personally seen use blood magic or turn into abominations - the mages he then helped kill.

For the first time in his life, he realised that in the moment before they cut their veins open or let a demon burst forth from their chests, every last one of those mages wore the same expression.

Fear. Desperation. Pain.

He remembered one young woman who had run away from the circle because her mother was dying. They'd tracked her down in a barn. She backed into a corner begging them not to take her. There were five of them surrounding her in full armor, and she was alone. Unarmed. 

"Blessed are they who stand before The corrupt and the wicked and do not falter."

He remembered repeating those lines to himself when he was fighting mages. When he was killing them. He felt sick.

"Commander? Are you alright?" 

He blinked, coming back into focus, and realised the dummy in front of him had no head anymore.

"Excuse me," he muttered, and walked briskly to his cabin.

He once visited a prison on templar business. He realised it didn't feel any different to the circle.

"Mages are dangerous. Any one of them can be corrupted." 

Those were the words spoken to him when he joined the order. The ones he repeated to himself over and over. Even here. Even at the Inquisition. He wasn't raised to do good. He was raised to kill mages. 

He once told Hawke that mages weren't people. Her sister was a mage. A Warden now, but–maker no wonder she looked at him with disgust.

"If you cage a dog and beat it for years how can you be surprised when it bites?"

He almost vomited as he remembered the Commander who calmly explained to him and all the other recruits that making a mage Tranquil was like neutering a feral dog - unpleasant, but necessary to tame it.

He remembered someone at Kinloch telling him how some of the Templars left books about blood magic around deliberately so they could apprehend anyone that read them.

He remembered a mage being beaten in Kirkwall screaming in pain and using the blood on the whip to conjure a protective shield around herself. Which they broke through. And killed her.

How did he spend so long utterly convinced that he was doing the Maker's work, when all he did was cause pain and violence? How did he convince himself he was in the right? 

Mistress Lavellan was not the first person to shout at him about this. Maker knows Hawke did it enough. What's different? What's chang–

The lyrium.

He staggered in his pacing around the room, almost falling over as his eyes went to the pile of belongings in the corner that the box he'd had since he was 18 lay at the bottom of. 

The first time he'd taken lyrium he'd hated it, it was disgusting - he remembers his friend Pip vomiting, asking if he had to take it, and the furious Commander threatening to beat him for insubordination.

Do we even need it? Is it even necessary? 

His thoughts turned to Alistair. Oh Maker. He'd never really thought about it, but Alistair left for the Wardens before he took his vows. He’d never taken lyrium, and Alistair could use his Templar abilities without it. He'd seen it. At Kinloch.

Cullen roared in anger and threw a glass at the wall where it shattered.

Lies. His whole life, his whole belief system was built on lies. He'd caused so much pain. So much evil, and he’d never once questioned it. 

How did he even begin to undo his wrongs? He could ask for forgiveness from Andraste, from the Maker, but what good did that do in the here and now?

There was a knock at the door.

"Not now!" 

"Bur sir, you asked for this report as soon–"

"I said NOT NOW!!"

The poor scout scurried away. A minute or two later, a familiar voice sounded outside, accompanied by a gentler knock. 

"Cullen, it's Leliana. Can I come in?"

"Fine." He tried to spit the word but his voice broke, betraying him. He didn't look up as she slipped inside.

"You're bleeding, Cullen." She gestured to her mouth, and Cullen mirrored her. 

Oh. Mistress Lavellan must have split my lip.

"I, ah, had a run-in with the Herald. It probably looks worse than it is."

"Let me–"

"No! I deserve it."

Leliana arched an eyebrow. She glanced deliberately at the shattered glass on the floor and then back to him. "Is there something you'd like to talk about, Cullen?"

"You have far better things to do with your time," he mumbled, turning away, but she grabbed his chin and made him look at her.

"That is not what I asked."

"I am a grown man Leliana, I can–"

"What? Self-flagellate in isolation and bottle up your emotions until they fester?"

Tears pricked in his eyes. He couldn't meet her gaze. 

"I understand not wanting to burden others with your feelings, Cullen, but shutting yourself away helps no one, least of all yourself. How is it better to break things and shout at our scouts through doors once you can't keep a handle on yourself any more?"

His cheeks burned with shame. He started to shake, the compassion in her voice stabbing through him deeper than any sword could.

She frowned a little. "Would you like me to pray with you?"

Cullen couldn't stop the hysterical laughter that burst out at that. As if prayer could fix what he was. What he'd done.

"Sit. Now." Cullen knew better than to ignore the authority in her voice, and as he collapsed into a chair, Leliana knelt in front of him, and tucked a stray curl behind his ear. Her face was dark with worry. She reminded him of Mia.

"Talk to me Cullen. Tell me what's wrong."

"Everything!" He shouted, unable to stop the tears that started falling from his eyes. "She was right! She stood there and shouted and wept and said the word Templar like it was poison and she was right! I killed innocent people because the Chantry told me my whole life that it was my duty to do so! I helped torture and murder children! And it took someone punching me in the face and calling me an idiot to make me even realise that that was wrong! If the Chantry is what the Maker truly wants then I want no longer want any party in it!"

Leliana took his hands. "And if the Chantry is not what the Maker wants?"

"Isn't it?" Cullen retorted bitterly, pulling his hands away. 

"Has He personally told you it is?" She was watching him calmly, as though his whole world wasn't spiralling into the abyss, and he wanted to scream.

"The Chantry speaks the word of the Maker. Everything they do is in His Name."

"That doesn't mean they are right."

He threw his hands up in the air in frustration, and stood, beginning to pace again. "Pray tell, then Leliana. What IS His will, hm? What DOES the Maker want? Did He put me on earth just to suffer? Is this my Trial? Am I failing?"

"The Maker does not make you suffer, Cullen. That is the fault of men."

"Stop being so cryptic!" He was shouting now, he could hear his voice getting louder and louder, and his face going red with anger and grief. "The Chantry speak for the Maker. They are His Church!"

"The Maker did not pick up a pen and write the Chant himself!" Leliana raised her voice too, standing defiantly in front of him. "He did not make the circles, or the Templars. Humans are fallible Cullen. They make mistakes, and words and intentions can be twisted!"

"But-"

"Who is your God, Cullen? Is it the Maker? Or is it The Chantry?"

The question stunned him into silence. His ears rang and he actually staggered backwards under the force with which the implications hit him. For what felt like an eternity, there was only silence, and his own ragged breathing as everything he ever learned fell apart and reformed into something new.

He stared at Leliana in wild disbelief, and she nodded, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips.

The Chantry and the Maker were not the same.

...the Chantry was wrong.

The Chantry was wrong.

The Chantry could be wrong. And he could still follow the Maker. 

Except.... Could he?

"Leliana..."

She waited patiently.

"How can I ever follow the Maker when I did such evil in his name?"

"I will be blunt, Cullen. There will be people that will never forgive you. Nor do they have any obligation to do so. But that should not stop you. It is never too late to change, or to start anew. True faith comes from action. Be vocal. Be compassionate. Treat mages with kindness and trust, but understand why they might not want it. You keep saying you are not the man you were in Kirkwall? Prove it. Repentance is hard, and will make you uncomfortable. You must work for it, and keep working for it. Remember it is not a goal, but a constant journey."

The words settled over him like a weighted blanket - heavy, but somehow comforting despite the solemnity of the moment.

"Thank you." He hesitated for a moment, staring at the ground, still wiping away the last of his tears. "...will you pray with me?" he asked quietly. "Not the Chant, just -"

"Of course."

Praying in silence was different. He was so used to speaking the words of the Chant and feeling them flow through him. Still, despite the quiet, it made the air in the cabin warm and light.

He felt a calm begin to settle inside him in the wake of his turmoil. He still had questions, and doubts, and guilt... but for the first time in far too long, he also had hope. He wanted to see the Herald and apologise. But that could wait. 

Leliana kissed his head and said " I'll tell everyone you are feeling unwell and you're not to be disturbed. Take some time to yourself. Rest. Start fresh tomorrow. When you want to talk about this some more, you know where to find me."

As she left, she smiled back at him. "Andraste watch over you, Commander."

It was a surprise that his returning smile came so naturally. "And you, Leliana."

[jewishzevran]

I'm forever going to be salty about the way Cullen was handled in DAI. I know there's a lot of people that actively hate him, and honestly? I see why, especially with his comments from DA2.

But Cullen deciding not to take lyrium, going through withdrawal, and as it leaves his system, realising how much of his world view was shaped through the Chantry's teaching, how he was groomed and radicalised, how it isn't even needed to give Templars their powers, and being completely horrified by that, would have been one hell of a character story to explore.

We needed someone to say "belief is passive, faith is active". We needed someone to say "your future actions will determine how seriously people take your declaration that you've changed, and even if you try to make amends, there will be people who will never forgive you, and they have zero obligation to do so", and then have him come face to face with a mage, or even the relative or a mage, who was hurt by him, and be forced to confront their grief and anger. We needed him to acknowledge his complicity in mage abuse, beyond the word "distrust". We needed other characters to challenge his views on mages and corruption. We needed him to call out other ex-templar recruits on their prejudice. Imagine Cullen discussing faith with Leliana or Cassandra, trying to reconcile his faith in the Maker with the horrific crimes committed in His name, by him and other Templars, and how the Chantry actively targets vulnerable and poor families for recruits.

I know that there would have still been people who had absolutely no interest in seeing him redeemed, and I fully respect and understand that. But I wish we had seen more of the little boy from Honnleath who desperately wanted to help people, rather than a half-reformed evangelical, whose arc ultimately feels empty and unfulfilled.