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kaija-rayne-author · 21 days ago

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Why was Isseya 'done dirty' in DAV?

Obligatory 'I'm not an asshole' disclaimer. Feel free to jump to the cut if you've read it.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I was on media blackout while I played DAV. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Though, every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

Note. None of my writing on DA, but especially DAV, is edited. This is just my off the cuff writing. I don't have the time, energy, or heart to edit them properly.

Spoilers for Last Flight and the Gloom Stalker storyline.

CW on ableist language. I had to use it to be clear.

CW on strong language.

CW on tired writing tropes that hurt people.

This one is a little more personal. I've already been told to go touch grass because I have a problem with that game sequence. And dared to try to politely explain why a lot of people feel Isseya was done dirty in it. (By other mentally ill people because, y'know, back biting and infighting is exactly what we need to do to each other.) And someone defending that sequence hit me harder than I really thought it did. That's often the way with trauma.

I'm mentally ill. Not a surprise to many, I'm sure. I'm extremely mentally ill. (By which I mean I have several, and will be on life-long medication for them.) I'm an advocate for several things I live with, and mental illness is one of them.

But I'm doing my best to not slide into a pit of absolute depression, right now.

Just saw someone passionately defending the Gloom Stalker storyline.

It made me as physically nauseated as the actual storyline itself.

Look. You can like/love problematic material. Just understand it's problematic and maybe not defend it?

It's fine to just like trashy material, or poorly written, or whatever. But that doesn't mean you defend it!

You can even recommend it. (I usually choose not to, but it's a personal choice thing.) If you recommend it, just add the addendum that it's problematic and how! It’s truly simple.

Enjoyment is subjective. And what that means is that it's fine to like stuff. Even if it's not good, or it's problematic.

But I personally think it's kinda our responsibility as decent human beings to do our best not to harm people as well.

And defending the Isseya/Gloom stalker storyline in DAV is absolutely problematic and harmful. Even if you don't know why.

Other people might have different reasons for saying Isseya was done dirty in that sequence. But mine are for both story and ableism reasons.

I'll explain, in case you're not in the mood to read my play-by-play (long) review series about DAV.

Isseya is a Grey Warden character from the book Last Flight by Liane Merciel, released by TOR/Dark Horse books and set in the Dragon Age Franchise.

She's the sister of the Grey Warden, Garahel, who partnered with Crookytail. There's a statue of Crookytail in DAV. It was one of the very few emotional moments for me in that game (other than utter horror and rage at the shittiness). I teared up at seeing that statue. At least they honoured Crookytail.

Isseya is an elven mage who, over the course of the book, delves further into blood magic than she should. The wardens are losing the fight. Once she learned she could do it, and once the First Warden learned she could, she was ordered to blight all the living griffins. Griffins were/are semi-resistant to blight. This went so against the griffins instinct against darkspawn/blight that it utterly destroyed them. Isseya was heart broken, horrified, and very against it. But she, like other Grey Wardens, could see they were losing. She followed orders. Neglecting to blight a few of them. Hers, Crookytail. Maybe a few others, it's been a few since I read Last Flight. I've read it twice.

Garahel and Crookytail take down the arch demon of the fourth blight, Andoral. Sacrificing their lives to do it.

Isseya, grief stricken at several events in the book (death of close brother, death of Crookytail, being forced to blight the griffins, the blood magic hastening her own fall into blight and hurrying her calling along) goes to extreme lengths to save the last griffins. Hoping that, at some future point in time, Wardens will be worthy of griffins again. Because they'd proven themselves completely unworthy of them in the book by utterly destroying their species.

Isseya saves Crookytail's last fathered clutch of eggs. (By Garahel's lover's griffin, Revas, if I recall correctly?) Those are the griffins in DAV. Assan is Crookytail's and Revas' son. (Really hope I'm not mixing up Garahel's lover's name with the griffin's name. I'm terrible with names to start with and it must have been 2 years since I read Last Flight. Hells, Revas mighta been Isseya's griffin. I didn't enjoy Last Flight that much. And I'm too fucking tired to look it up.)

Because of their shame in destroying the entire griffin species (because they intentionally don't know that Isseya saved that last clutch of eggs) the Wardens created the pile of unhonoured, unremembered bones that we see in DAV in the Cauldron.

It's not my favourite of the books, but it is beautifully written, tragic, but with a gleaming golden line of hope running through it. (It’s also why I would never choose to allow Wardens to have griffins again. Ever. They don't deserve them and they've already proven it to the almost extinction of their species.)

They didn't even have the decency to honour the griffins they destroyed who fell defeating the fourth blight. Which was actually all of them except those thirteen? eggs that Isseya saved. It's utterly disgusting. I believe the Cauldron is meant to be. If I recall correctly, that arch-demon skeleton is the same one Garahel and Crookytail died to defeat.

That's where whoever wrote that ableist travesty of a storyline went wrong. Up until then, the story made some sort of sense.

I can actually see Isseya stealing the griffins. If, out of fear, she'd watched the Wardens who found them, and finds that, no, maybe they don't deserve them, yeah, I could see her stealing them. She'd already done so much to save them, you see.

Story wise, it's just shitty writing to have her stab a blade into the bones of a 400 year old arch-demon skeleton and get liquid blood.

It's shitty writing to use such a harmful fucking trope, too.

She then, because 'she went mad from grief and guilt' because she's 'crazy' intends to blight the griffins she fought so hard to save?

Excuse me, now? Does that make any kind of sense to anyone?

Oh, but it's because she's mad! Crazy!

Y'all do know that both mad and crazy mean mentally ill, right? That they're innately ableist words that have been weaponized against mentally ill people for centuries, right?

If you didn't, you do now, please do better.

So let's break that down.

1. There is no Lore that indicates that the blight makes someone crazy/mad. Nor automatically into rage monsters. A being can become blighted in two ways. One is the regrettably written Broodmothers that BioWare has been trying to get away from forever. A being can also become a darkspawn by being blighted. Usually it kills, but in a small percentage of intellectual beings, it turns them into darkspawn, instead. But BioWare replaced the whole Broodmother concept with the 'anyone can be blighted into turning into a darkspawn.' Meaning it is Canon. That's what Wardens willingly do to themselves. They turn themselves into darkspawn. It just takes a while to set in.

Blight, in the Lore, basically makes the blighted hear 'the song' and only the song. That's what The Calling is. A Warden hearing the song and becoming a darkspawn. That's how it's always been depicted. Anyone 'losing their mind' (and please, just stop and think about how ableist that concept is, too? For a second? Please?) to the blight is just overwhelmed by the song requiring them to dig for arch-demons. (Unless there's an ascended arch-demon, but I'll get to that.) This is clearly laid out in the Lore and even, IIRC the book Last Flight itself. There are a few darkspawn who can resist what must be the worst case of tinnitus ever. There's The Architect, blighted, completely sane, not a rage ridden beast, and also diametrically opposed to anything the unblighted want. There've been stories of Hurlocks (blighted humans) working on behalf of the unblighted. The blight doesn't drive people mad/crazy in the Lore. At all. That excuse doesn't hold water.

Darkspawn don't turn into raging, bloodthirsty monsters until an arch-demon rises. Again, this is well established in the Lore. It's something about the arch-demon that makes them like chad-bros with bad attitudes, testosterone poisoning, and probably steroid abuse on top of it. Without an arch-demon (who we now know is bound to an incredibly pissed off Evanuris) they basically dig. Dig, and dig some more. Sometimes they raid for supplies. That's how it is in the Lore. And yes, I can actually prove it. Am I going to? With specific links and references (which i really could do) no. Not unless someone wants to pay me. I just don't care enough. I have, unfortunately, marinated myself in the Lore for years. It's been a long standing autistic special interest. I honestly wish, after playing DAV, that I could forget it all. Alas, it's not likely.

2. The basic premise of Isseya being 'mad/crazy from 400 years of 'guilt and grief' is ableist from the start. Saying that grief and guilt can drive people to mental illness isn't problematic, because it can. But saying that she's driven to violence and horrific actions because of it is just harmful. Saying that the blight automatically drives someone mad with rage/anger is also ableist. There isn't anything wrong with rage or anger. It can drive us to do awful things, but also good things like political advocacy. And in one of the supplementary pieces, it's established that darkspawn don't usually feel anything. They just... dig. They dig even while they're starving to death. Rage and anger? Yeah, those are emotions. And they also don't make you insane. Oh, but there are ascended arch-demons in DAV, therefore it must be fine to say Isseya is mad because the arch-demons being free alter the darkspawn into raging, bloodthirsty beasts. Right?

Except that's not what was clearly said to be the reason Isseya is supposedly mad/crazy. That was grief and guilt. Ableism is fun, no? /s

I'm not even sure if Elgar'nan's and Ghilan'nain's dragons really count as arch-demons despite the game calling them that. The rage of an arch-demon was likely that of the Evanuris it was bound to. Ghilly and Eggy are free, and upset, yes, but not rage stricken anymore. I'd think the 'arch-demons' in DAV to be just blighted dragons. But we all know how poorly they actually adherred to the Lore, anyway.

3. There isn't any mental illness I'm aware of that could make someone who sacrificed so much trying to save the last griffins because of her part in destroying them, want to then destroy them. It's like saying that mental illness can make people completely ignore sacred, bone deep beliefs enough to do the exact opposite of what they've committed to doing with everything in them. It's problematic, harmful, and ableist as fuck.

It's always the crazy/mad (mentally ill) villain. Always. I'm so nauseatingly sick of it. It's a tired, harmful trope that gets mentally ill people killed every single day.

Violence isn't a part of most mental illnesses, you know. It just isn't. The most mentally ill people usually want is basic respect and dignity, no problems refilling our meds, maybe tea, fluffy socks, and a good bit of entertainment to distract us.

The 'mad/crazy villain' trope robs us of basic dignity and respect. I'm so very, very tired of it. Whoever wrote and Whoever approved that sequence in DAV should absolutely be ashamed of themselves for it. It hurt and nauseated me to play it. It probably hurt and nauseated a lot of mentally ill gamers. And we're not a small percentage of gamers, in general.

And yes, it absolutely did Isseya dirty. In the shitty writing, (blood from bones, really? Really really? Marrow would be dried to dust or a rocky texture, and it's not impossible to stab through bone, but it's certainly unrealistic). The usage of a tired, harmful, ableist trope, too. In the claim that she'd been driven so mad she'd turned eeeeevvvvviiiillll by...checks notes... grief and guilt. Okay then. Yeah. That's perfectly fine. (That was the ripest of sarcasm. It is not fine. It gets people killed.) And it completely obliterated a beautiful, tragic story with a gleaming thread of hope into... that. Having to kill the person responsible for saving the griffins and sacrificing so much to do it... it's grotesque as well as harmful and ableist.

Can someone please explain to me, using small words, how that's not doing Isseya dirty?

Do you know that mentally ill people are responsible for 3% of violent crime? The rest is on all you neurotypicals. The whole 97%.

Yet it's always, because of ham handed, harmful narratives like the Gloom Stalker sequence in DAV, the mentally ill who are first blamed for anything violent. If they don't say it's autistic people. Because that's the other group that is always blamed, again, because of harmful narratives in fiction and misunderstanding by people who don't bother to learn better. Autistic people are almost hard wired to avoid hurting others. We're generally your classic white knight, tilting at windmills type. Everyone can be driven to violence. Humans are an innately violent species. So, while yes, we can be driven to it, it takes so much more to do it than it would for a neurotypical that it's ridiculous to automatically accuse either mentally ill or autistic people of violence.

Lucky me, I'm both.

Do you have any idea how much it hurts to be part of such an abused minority? Two of them? Do you have any clue how much narratives like that one are overused? What ham-handed, harmful, ableist claptrap they are?

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find media to enjoy that doesn't hurt when you happen to be mentally ill?

If you do know, I'm so, so sorry. I get it. And I deeply wish none of us had to.

So that's why Isseya was 'done dirty'. Other people's why might be different, but I bet a lot of people's are similar to mine.

My work of words is my only income. I'm recovering from a pulmonary embolism and my husband is recovering from a broken back. Money is so tight it squeaks. If my writing does anything for you, please consider a tip or buying my books. You might actually like them.

And I will never, ever, use 'mentaI illness turned me eeeevvvviiiilll' in my work.

I'm better than that. Oh, what... I'm supposed to not make a moral judgement about work that hurts people and gets them killed? Fuck that.

Did that offend your precious feelings? Go touch some grass.

#dragon age #veilguard #dragon age veilguard #da veilguard #dragonage #bioware critical #DAV critical #DATV critical #Isseya #GloomStalker #Gloom Stalker #mental illness #3% of violent crime is committed by mentally ill or otherwise neurodivergent people the rest of the 97% is on you neurotypicaks #stop using mentally ill people as your narrative toy to abuse.

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