#god he better be in Veilguard and LIVE

[mohntilyet]

also i talk about 'getting lucanis out' like it's an easy thing but i do genuinely wonder if he experiences cognitive dissonance over it all. surely he must know if he stays with the crows and stays first talon, he's stuck in this state forever. he can change things, but how long does that last? how many times has he thought, guilty, 'maybe after caterina dies, i can be free'? how many crows will be waiting for him to die, so they can go back to killing for coin without thinking of the innocents lucanis wants to save? how could he ever ensure that? and if he has kids (i don't even think. he wants kids frankly.) i refuse to believe he would abuse them the way caterina abused him. like how does he raise any child to take over a guild that is infamous for infighting. he doesn't need to look far to know how that goes. the dellamortes used to be 14 members strong, and within a few decades that number gets whittled down to 3. lucanis stays with the crows? it can be whittled down to 0. but the dellamorte legacy remains. how on earth could he ever extract himself from the mess he's inherited. how could he ever trust any other hand except his own

[a-gay-bloodmage]

Day 17: Her Usual Modus Operandi

(Neve Gallus & Ishal Mercar)

Ishal Mercar is a flirt. She can’t help it. And when the world is falling apart, she wants to at least have a little fun. At least Neve is willing to play along.

Written for the @loveofdragonage event!

Read on Archive of Our Own Here!

[sky-scribbles]

I'm going to say something controversial. I think there's something Veilguard does better than any other Dragon Age game. Namely: incorporating the companions into the plot.

Look, I love Origins as much as everyone. But to be frank: you could cut every companion except Alistair, Morrigan and Loghain and the plot could still work. Once you've finished the mission where you recruit a companion, there aren't other main quests that involve them in any way.

Oghren and Wynne could have stayed home after their recruitment missions for all the difference it would make to the main plot. Sten, Leliana and Zevran could vanish and nothing would change, because once they're on your team, they don't interact with the main plot at all. (There's the Temple of Sacred Ashes, I suppose - but even then, you'd be going on that quest whether Leliana and Wynne were there or not, and it's very telling that they can both die here and next to nothing in the rest of the game is impacted.)

Again: I love Origins. This doesn't detract from any of these characters being great, or from the story being great. It just means there's a layer of separation between the two. They're involved in the story, but they're not driving it, and you seldom get to see them have strong feelings about it.

DA2 is a huge step up. Your companions' personal stories are integral parts of the main plot. You can't do the Deep Roads expedition without witnessing Karl's death and its impact on Anders. You can't enter Act 2 without seeing Varric's brother betray him, or watching your sibling either die or begin a new path in life. Act 2's climax happens because of choices Isabela and Aveline have made. Act 3's endgame is all about Anders making one enormous decision. Even Fenris and Merrill, who have the fewest ties to the plot, have strong reasons to be invested in the Mage/Templar conflict.

And then Inquisition just... backslides. There are multiple companions you don't need to recruit at all, or can send away with zero alteration to the main plot. Your companions don't like Corypheus because he's bad, but no one - except maybe Varric - has any strong personal feelings about him. They have no personal stake in defeating him, not like Alistair has a personal stake in opposing Loghain, or Anders in opposing Meredith.

We go to the Winter Palace, and Vivienne is not made a part of that story. We have a whole subplot about the Wardens, and Blackwall only gets a couple of extra lines, if you even bring him. Their personal arcs could have been somehow impacted by these missions, and they're just... not. Sera is packed with internalised self-hatred that manifests as trying to distance herself from elven culture, to the point of sometimes lashing out at other elves. And despite all the missions you do where elven history features... Sera's growth past that flaw happens entirely offscreen between the base game and Trespasser?????

IMO, this is one of the biggest reasons why Corypheus is such a bland villain. He doesn't make anyone grow, except by starting a plot for them to be part of. He doesn't challenge them emotionally. No one is invested in him. Because no one interacts with the darn plot.

Veilguard, though? Veilguard keeps your companions interacting with the story the whole way through. The Treviso/Minrathous choice affects both Lucanis and Neve heavily, and impacts who they become for the rest of the game. These cities are personal to you, even if you're not a Crow or Shadow Dragon, because your companions love them.

The Siege of Weisshaupt is beyond personal to Davrin and Lucanis, both of whom are entrusted with major parts of the quest: trying to kill the archdemon and Ghilan'nain. Lucanis is affected by his failure to kill Ghilan'nain for ages afterward. Davrin is haunted by survivor's guilt; he should have died when he struck down the archdemon. He's alive. How can he live with that?

Whenever killing the gods becomes a possibility, Rook hands the lyrium dagger to Lucanis. When the squad go to fight the gods' dragons with the Wardens, Taash is the one to flush the first dragon out. When you infiltrate the Venatori, Neve tricks your way in, and everything that happens is especially weighty to Bellara, whose people have been abducted. On Tearstone Island, because of how Lucanis and Spite have grown, they strikes true.

Did you not hate Elgar'nan before that mission? Because you probably will after you watch him capture Bellara or Neve, and see his fellow god kill Harding or Davrin.

You know what's a great piece of writing? There's no reason Emmrich shouldn't have been an option to deal with the wards on Tearstone Island; he's one of the ideal options to take out more wards with the Veil Jumpers in the final mission. But you can't select him to do it. Because Emmrich has far less personal investment in the Elgar'nan battle than the other two. This is Neve's city. This is the monster who tries to call himself Bellara's god. The game makes sure the characters who take control of the Blight at the end are the ones with the greatest stakes in doing so.

One of your companions, not you, wrests command of the Blight from Elgar'nan. The final mission depends on how well you've come to know each companion's skills. They're just... always involved.

And they're invested, too. The companions all have serious personal reasons to hate the antagonists by the end. Lucanis and Neve have either seen their city burn, or know it happened at the cost of their friend's (and potential partner's) hometown. Davrin has seen his order devastated. These are Bellara's and Davrin's supposed gods, and instead of helping the elves reclaim their history and culture, they're trying to enslave the world. Harding learns that the Evanuris maimed and destroyed her Titan ancestors.

Emmrich and Taash have perhaps the smallest emotional tie - and sadly I do think Emmrich especially gets underutilized in the plot. But heck, Taash is still hella motivated by the way the gods are abusing dragons. And Emmrich is tied thematically to the main conflict. He's facing the question of immortality, while nigh-immortal beings are right in front of him, proving how that gift can be abused. The final choice of his personal arc is whether he's willing to embrace his personal, mortal attachments, at the cost of consequences that terrify him... you know, the same question that Solas faces at the end.

And don't even get me started on how everyone is emotionally tied to Solas. Harding and Neve watched him kill Varric in front of them. Everyone not dead or captured has to watch him drag Rook into the Fade. Just about every companion faces some kind of huge regret or failure at some point, in constant foreshadowing for Solas's prison of regret: both the literal one he sticks Rook in, and the mental one of his own making.

Veilguard has its problems, but it absolutely shines at keeping its characters involved and invested in the main story. It gives them things to do, it gives them reasons to care. For all the flaws this game has, this part is good writing.

[rookamell]

There's a Varric/Blackwall banter in Inquisition that is probably my favourite quote to come out of the dragon age series and also says so much about Varric and also about Hawke but reframed in the context of Veilguard also says so much about Rook and why those people complaining about Rook 'not being a main character' or Rook 'not having any right to be the leader' are so completely missing the point of Rook.

Blackwall: You can't really think Reeve Asa is a better knight than Honorine Chastain. Her record's flawless. Four hundred jousts, never unseated. No one's ever come close to it.

Varric: Oh, she's easily the most skilled, that's a fact. It's just that 'scrappy' is better than 'flawless'. I like heroes who try their damndest, even if they fail a lot. It's easy to be valiant when you always win and everything goes your way. There's nothing great in that.

In Inquisition, obviously Varric is talking about Hawke. Hawke, the tragically doomed hero who tried and failed to save Kirkwall, but who tried. Now explain to me why Varric would pick anyone other than Rook to be his second? To look after the team while he talks to Solas? Varric is, first and foremost, however much he tries to be something else or pretend he isn't, an idealist. An author. He lives and thinks in terms of stories, it helps him deal with and make sense of the world. So why would he go and try and recruit the type of hero he doesn't like? Yeah, Rook is a nobody. They're probbaly not the best at what they do and the only reason Varric notices them is because they get cast out of their organisation for going against orders to save people. They might not be the most skilled, but goddamn if they don't try. Rook is the definition of scrappy, the prologue and first couple of cutscenes basically hit you over the head with it multiple times. They're exactly the stuff heroes are made of, according to Varric. And sure, they need some help, but what good would a story be if the hero was perfect all the time?

God I love Rook. And I love Varric and the way he thinks. And you know what? You know what the game says?

He's fucking right.

[larxicana]

PTSD Representation within DATV

God I just need to talk about how much I love how the game handles Lucanis's PTSD, especially as someone living with PTSD.

Spoilers for Veilguard and Lucanis's story line under the cut.

Grab a drink and a snack. This is a long one XD

After -checks notes- 450hrs into Veilguard, I can confidently say that Lucanis is my favorite character, and not just because of his lethal sad puppy eyes. For this post, I'll just be focusing specifically on his PTSD and how it's portrayed.

So we first meet Lucanis in the Ossuary, after a very dramatic slaughter of some Venatori guards. For a guy who has been locked up and tortured for a year, he looks pretty damn good. I know this is just game bullshit, but I like it from the perspective of a mask, a protective front. He looks collected, well put together, suave, the perfect image of a master assassin, a Crow, a world class mage-killer. This is kind of what someone would expect him to look like. This is what he's supposed to look like. He doesn't look like a man who has been tortured for a year, because it's hidden behind an acceptable appearance.

Of course the deeper we go through the Ossuary, we see evidence of the horrendous experiments that went on there, just a tiny fraction, a hint of what Lucanis went through. Then afterwards, he talks a little about his experience with the others as we walk around doing quests. One such dialog always stuck with me:

Davrin: So this Ossuary Rook found you in, what goes on down there? Lucanis: Nothing good. Davrin: How did you survive? Lucanis: Shut down completely. Think nothing, feel nothing, except what you need to escape. Davrin: What's left? Lucanis: If you're lucky? Revenge. And bad dreams.

Every time I hear this, I feel like someone is squeezing my heart with both hands. First of all, there's a very clear deflection in each line Lucanis says. "And bad dreams" is delivered with a touch of humor and lightness, the sort of tone that's used to make the person you're talking to smile or chuckle, which would diffuse the tense moment, take the pressure off of him and sweep his true feelings under the rug while Davrin is distracted from them by the joking tone.

Once again, that mask, that front, is in place. Davrin expects the events of the Ossuary to be horrific, so Lucanis plays a bit of the part, agrees that it was horrible, but it's so incredibly surface level, and he keeps it that way. As Davrin asks questions, tries to dig a little deeper, Lucanis pulls the card of "I survived the Ossuary and all I got was this stupid shirt."

The world conditions us to wear the mask; no one actually wants a real answer when they ask "how are you?" When we've experienced trauma, we hold onto that mask even tighter because we feel damaged or hurt on the inside. We aren't supposed to be that way, feel that way. No one wants to deal with that.

A Crow isn't supposed to be that way. The Demon of Vyrantium isn't supposed to be broken, damaged. He's supposed to be a professional, a master class assassin, the heir to the seat of First Talon.

We see a lot of Lucanis struggling with who he is after the Ossuary as well, which is one of my favorite details. There are moments, like after Weisshaupt, when Lucanis says "I thought after the Ossuary, I could still take out a target." Or when we first meet him in the cell, when Rook says Caterina promised them a mage-killer and Lucanis replies "I can still work." During the quest Inner Demons, there are so many thought fragment notes where Lucanis says he isn't supposed to be like this, that he's better than this, that he can't be like this.

God, breaks my heart. I empathize with that so much. Something I personally struggled with a lot when learning to live with PTSD was the fact that I felt like I wasn't the same person I was before my trauma. I was so angry, because I really liked the person I was before. I was happy, and now all of a sudden, I felt like the exact opposite. For quite some time, I couldn't think of it as anything else. I didn't want to move forward, because that would be accepting that I've changed.

Then there's the expectation of living up to what people remember you as and the shame when you fall flat and the people you care about see that shortcoming. You feel like a burden. They didn't sign up to deal with your bullshit.

Think of it like carrying an overcrowded tray of drinks. It's heavy, cumbersome, and any jostle to your person spills a little bit of that water. Any obstacle, big or small, threatens the delicate balance of the sudden armful of crap you're forced to carry. And when you do fumble, make a mistake, step where you thought there was solid ground, only to find a pot hole, those glasses come crashing down in a loud and explosive commotion that draws the attention of everyone around you. All of a sudden you're soaked, surrounded by the signs of your failure, and you feel so embarrassed and ashamed because you just caused a scene. All of a sudden, people are asking if you're ok, and we all know that just makes it worse. They either offer to help you clean up or eye the mess with judgement and neither of those options feel good.

Lucanis is a mage-killer. He was hired to kill mages, something he's done hundreds of times. And yes it's a near impossible task and he gets so close the first time, but when his reality and sense of self is already shaken, any little jostle can threaten the delicate balance he's trying to hold on to.

-

Inner Demons is probably my favorite quest out of the entire game. It is such a fantastic representation of how PTSD feels to the body and the mind.

Before Spite even pulls Rook into his host's mind, we see that Lucanis is extremely irritated. He is extremely quick to anger, which was something we haven't really seen from him before. He's gotten annoyed with others, but never raised his voice. Here, he's snapping at Viago and growling about how he doesn't know how to deal with the situation. Teia is definitely not helping when she tells Lucanis to reason with Viago, applying more pressure when the poor thing is already pulled so tight, he's about to break.

A common symptom of PTSD is that sudden and explosive anger at seemingly small things. I once got so mad while trying to hang curtains, that I literally ripped the bracket out of the wall, threw it, screamed, then broke down sobbing.

Once Spite pulls Rook into Lucanis's mind, they're confronted with four different people they have to get past to get to the heart of the prison, where Lucanis has barricaded himself. It's pretty obvious these are protective walls he's built for himself, to keep people out and to keep the parts of himself he's ashamed of inside. However, we can already see these walls starting to crumble, because the first room Rook steps into, the outer most wall, is supposed to be their room.

Rook: Nobody's here. Spite: Of course not. Rook can't be here. Rook: Why not? Spite: You open doors. You don't close them.

Through the constant support Rook has given Lucanis, he's starting to allow some of the damaged parts of him show around them, whether it's a conscious or unconscious decision. He's starting to feel safe around them.

This is massive. I mentioned above that showing that vulnerability, that "damaged" side of one's self can be full of so much embarrassment and shame, but finding those people you can be your entire self with? Scars and breakdowns and everything, and they still love and support you without judgement? That shit is priceless. I can't put into words how good that feels. I love seeing Lucanis find that person. (I love being that person when I play the game.)

Deeper into the prison, Rook meets with Lucanis's version of Caterina, Harding, Neve, and Illario, each getting more vulnerable with what they say and represent.

I like Harding's scene in particular. If Rook takes Harding with them to free Lucanis, she is not quiet about how she doesn't trust Lucanis, how abominations only bring trouble and pain. Then afterwards, she boldly threatens him with a rather twisted arrow, one she bought specifically to use against him, should he turn against her and her friends. Later on, well before the Inner Demons quest, they have this conversation:

Lucanis: Harding, I am giving the arrow back to you. Harding: What? No! I gave you that to show you that I trust you. Lucanis: And I am giving it back to show that I trust you.

Beautiful. Stunning. One of my favorite party dialogs in the game. It shows their development perfectly, and all with just 3 lines.

But it makes her appearance in the prison fantastic, because Harding refers to Lucanis as "the prisoner," boldly asks Rook if they're sure there ever was a Lucanis and not just the demon, and points out that the mind they're standing in is broken and wrong, that it can't possible belong to a human being. Lucanis trusts Harding at this point, he knows this, understands this, but trauma and fear are never logical. You can know and understand something perfectly, but that doesn't mean your body is going to listen.

Illario gets a really good line, too.

Illario: He'll [Lucanis] carry this prison with him forever, and fill it with corpses, given time.

The theme of the prison is that Lucanis sees himself as a monster after coming back from the Ossuary as an abomination (btw I hate this term and want to burn it out of the game universe.) So, this line is probably talking about how freeing Lucanis from his mind prison would get people killed, because he'll lose control of Spite and go on a rampage and all that.

However, it also makes me think about the fear of losing the people he cares about, because suddenly he carries this trauma that can push or frighten people away. The "corpses" aren't literal, but figurative, to describe the relationships he might lose. Lucanis has his new found family that he cares about, Rook included, and he doesn't want to lose that. All his life, the only thing people wanted from him, saw value in, were his skills as a Crow. That warmth, care, and accepting for parts of himself that have nothing to do with his skills as an assassin, but things he actually likes and enjoys… It's something he's never had before.

-

FINALLY we get to the best part of the mind prison. The part that fucking resonates with me every single time I play the quest.

Rook finds Lucanis standing in the middle of the torture area, where all the tables, corpses, and cages are, where he was cut open and tested on. This is where his trauma truly stems from, so it's really cool that we find him here.

It's pretty neat to see what Spite was referring to all those times he tried to leave when Lucanis was sleeping or when he told Rook that their deal was broken, that he wanted "out." He clearly doesn't understand trauma and mental health when it comes to mortals. So seeing the prison Lucanis’s mind has become, he just assumes it’s the actual prison.

We get a really awesome bit of conversation between the three here.

Spite: He breaks our agreement. His mind. Is still here. He wants. To stay here. So he keeps. ME HERE!! Lucanis: Mierda! Why would I want to stay? Even in my head, this place is a nightmare. Rook: Right, but it's a nightmare you already defeated... I get it now. As painful as the Ossuary was for you, it was better than the alternative. Lucanis: What alternative? Rook: The Ossuary, Zara? Those were problems you could solve with a blade. But healing again? Learning to live life as an abomination? There's no clear answer there. Lucanis: No! I... That is not... Ugh!! Damn it, Rook!!

And it's TRUE!! When healing from trauma, the treatments (therapy, support groups, medication, etc.) are important, but recovering is not straight forward, one size fits all. And that can be so frustrating and scary. I can only speak for myself here, of course, but I was so angry all the time. I didn't sign up for this shit, for this extra work, this fight for normalcy and sense of myself again, when I already had it. In an instant, my life was flipped upside down and shaken out, like a puzzle that showed a picture of who I am, but was chucked at the ground to be reduced to pieces, and now I had to work to put it together again. It's also not easy to admit that something is wrong, that you could be wrong.

Spite turns to Rook:

Spite: Make him leave! Rook, diplomatic option: He's trying to leave, Spite. It's... complicated. Mortals can't just change themselves. It takes a lot of time.

Beautiful. Perfection. Such a great response. Healing, recovery, learning to live the new normal... it's difficult, confusing, and takes such a long time. It can feel like being stuck in a prison, wandering endless, dark hallways with no sign of a possible exit, to the point where you start to wonder if there even is an exit.

The next line Lucanis says is my favorite out of the entire quest. Every time I hear it, I get a little emotional. The first time I went through the quest, I had to pause the game because it hit me so hard.

Lucanis: Rook, you're right. There has to be a way forward. It's just... so much! I cannot see where to begin!

Fuck, man.

I don't think I can properly put it into words how perfect this line of dialog is. This is it. This is what it feels like.

When I first started learning to cope with my PTSD, my therapist told me that her other clients going through a similar journey told her that it took a long time, but they eventually found a light at the end of the tunnel, that hope to overcome the struggle and darkness and weight of it all. I was never a pessimist before my trauma. I was always painfully optimistic, found the good in everything, but this... I didn't believe her. I 100% did not believe that I would find that light. It felt like so much. God, it was suffocating some days, debilitating. It felt like I was being asked to move a goddamn mountain. How was I supposed to move an entire mountain??

The answer, was to move smaller, more manageable rocks, one by one.

To start small.

This is the advice Rook gives Lucanis. They tell him to start small. Find an achievable goal and work towards that. For Lucanis, it's finding common ground with Spite, a goal they can both work towards together.

When the scene eventually comes back to the bar, Lucanis has a lightness to him, clarity. He knows what he needs to do to move forward. This one goal isn't going to get his mind out of the prison it made for itself, but it's getting him moving again, walking forward. The wards and guards have been dealt with, the doors are open.

Healing and learning to meet himself where he's at still won't be easy and there will be set backs, breakdowns, arguments with his inner demon, but every step forward, no matter how small, is progress. Every time Lucanis stumbles and falls, he'll start to remember how to stand back up again, and if he can't do it himself that day, maybe he just doesn't have the strength or he starts looking at the mountain again instead of just the smaller rocks, he's got people there who will take his hand and help him back to his feet, bring his attention back down to the manageable.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk XD

[senseandaccountability]

the narrative that could have been

Having mulled over the game for a couple of days I have realised that the main problem for me is that Veilguard is good based on the premises they ultimately choose, but not based on the set up and promise of what was there before. I know this isn’t a unique take by any means and yes it’s all about the Evanuris and the Veil and Solas. 

Replaying really emphasises how incredibly little the game convinces me of its original main quest - to prevent Solas from doing his ritual. This is a problem as a long-term player because for three games we’ve had build up for a great crescendo tackling the overarching themes of the (restrictions and oppression of) magic, of tears in the Veil, of religious tyranny and oppression based on myths about the Black City and the temptations of flawed humans, we’ve seen and deconstructed the elves quite a bit, we got started on the dwarves and in DAI your Inquisitor can openly ask Solas if it wouldn’t be better if the Veil came down because then spirits wouldn’t be separated from the living and risk becoming demons. Cole, whose function is to reflect the plot, talks endlessly about the old songs wanting to be sung again, about how it hurts to be cut off from part of yourself, how the templars feel it, how the mages feel it, how the elves and the dwarves feel it. The Veil as a prerequisite for life has been deconstructed, the Fade demystified, the gods have mostly fallen. The Veil as an actual wound inflicted on this earth has been presented as a theory and not been convincingly rejected by the narrative. 

The game actually gives no explanation whatsoever as to why the Veil coming down would be worse than what Rook causes in the beginning and what the escaped gods then do to the entire Thedas. The entire south falls to the Blight because Elgar’nan and Ghilan'nain are let loose. The Wardens are more or less wiped out. There’s enormous political turmoil. The game gives us Solas saying “thousands” would die when he brought the Veil down, but that he had a host of spirits there to help. (Yes, I know, his sole function in this game is to Trick and Deceive so who is to say if he’s lying, HUH, but even so, THE ENTIRE SOUTH FALLS TO THE BLIGHT IN ROOK’S VERSION OF THINGS.)

The game puts emphasis on Solas's questionable methods and past horrors but it doesn't ever explain why his goals are despicable here and now. It doesn't convince us that tearing down the Veil with lots of safety measures in place and after considerations is a bad result, all things considered - save for Varric’s initial yelling about demons. (We even learned in DAI that the Veil itself creates demons because it restricts the passage of spirits, come on.) Because three games have suggested it's not, not ultimately. Trespasser especially nuances this, just as it nuances Solas’s view of this current world state. Right after his long nap he would have nuked it all, I’m sure, but the whole point of character arcs is that things happen in them and what happened to him is that he was shown layers and angles he had not considered and adjusted his mindset and ultimately his plan accordingly. That is where DAV should have picked it up. That's where the build up was headed. But, now he must serve the narrative solely as the God of Treachery and Lies which means that previous build up is washed away for the most part. (In no way do I think he is OOC in DAV, I just want to point that out so nobody thinks I’m a sappy fangirl or whatever. I think he is perfectly in tune with his inner Dread Wolf, but that is also all he gets to be, because of the narrative, and I’m always much more interested in when roles and personas clash.) Again. The main problem is that the narrative cannot explain why bringing down the Veil would be the worse option than the shit we see unfold on screen. Instead it gets a bit lost in the past.  And I have Issues with that, as well.  Like, the dumbing down of the war against the Evanuris. The war that started because the leaders of the rebellion - who previously had to carry out terrible orders so the Evanuris, the upper crust of the Elvhenan, could play gods - decided that the Evanuris was a threat to them all. And the game gives us what, a depiction of how the rebellion ended up crossing lines, too? No shit.

Like, I am fully on board with the individual theme of regret on Solas’s part and he ought to be wrecked with guilt but I wish the game could be less all over the place with what sort of things he ought to be wrecked with guilt over. Saying fuck you to the Evanuris is the best and brightest of his character, I suppose I just don't want it dragged down to the same level as him breaking the Titans. I suppose I would have wished for a narrative that also worked on a systemic level when depicting things like, you know, war and revolutions and subjugation. But we don't have that, because DAV is only about personal choices. The Lighthouse crew flippantly writing the hierarchical and violent power struggle off as being about love and betrayal is on my shitlist forever. 

No, Taash et al, it was not about pussy, it was about feeling compelled by superiors to commit heinous war crimes and being lied to about the actual purposes of your damn war in the first place. The elves shouting at Elgar’nan and Mythal in this painting aren’t driven by love and sex they have been lied to by their ruling class. It was never about freedom or ending the wars, it was always about Elgar’nan jerking off to ultimate godhood. The writing even suggests betrayal here is to be understood as Netflix drama betrayal, maybe some juicy porny plot but it’s ABOUT THE BETRAYAL OF THE ELVES BY THEIR OWN KIN.  ((ETA: I would have wanted my Dalish mage to be allowed to be furious, NOT WITH SOLAS, but with the fucking Evanuris for betraying her people and being so fucking vile that the only option that remained was to create a world where she's a second-class citizen. I would have wanted the game to recognize that not all causes are equal and that Elgar'nan's cause for godhood was objectively more vile than Solas's cause for freedom because as it stands now, there are some really iffy vibes of "both sides are equally bad" and other things authorities tend to say when comparing destructive regimes with uprisings.)) I’m sorry, this shit hits me on a personal and political rage level. 

I also can’t help but mourn a game where the Trickster God fulfilled his trope’s duty and shook the stagnation apart with his actions - for good or ill, the way trickster gods are wont to do - and where Rook was tricked into helping and then, a more complex game about its consequences could have unfolded. The Evanuris could still have been the bad guys, if they wanted big villains frothing at the mouth. There could still have been numerous unplanned consequences, like all of Solas's plans have. Maybe other ancients awake as well. Maybe ancient evils who aren’t elves, who knows. Point is - the Veil should have come down, at least in some form, at least in some outcome. THAT is what they've been building up to. In this game that never was, Rook could be an actual interesting character where we could mold her as either accepting of this trickster role (which fits perfectly for a blank slate with no ties) or set to overturn it and enforce status quo, with some vanilla option in the middle. Maybe the Veil doesn’t come down until the very end of the game, ancient magic takes time after all, maybe a lot has happened by then. But ultimately, Rook’s choice in the end should not have been about siding against Solas because he’s lying to you or because he did horrible things in the past or siding with him because you want him redeemed. The narrative should have provided those options either way. The narrative should have been brave enough to suggest that hey, maybe Solas isn't wrong at all - his methods maybe, but his goal, no. If they truly wanted mirrors between Rook and Solas, Rook should have tackled the issue of actively bringing down the Veil herself, not because it's a roses and sunshine-outcome but because it might very well be the lesser of two evils. Gods, that would have been interesting. It should have been a choice about what sort of world Rook and the Veilguard wants to see in the future. It should have been about the people, the world, not how angry Rook is that an ancient elf has tricked her. 

That would have been the game I wanted to play.  This story doesn't really give anything new to the world of Thedas, which a world without the Veil would have. It accomplishes closure for our favourite trickster god and bless them for that, but as for the plot and the world-building it ends on a meh because the narrative isn't about the people unless they're brought up as being endangered. This is why I can feel satisfaction regarding the thematic conclusion to certain character arcs, the trickster becomes the healer with the bloodiest hands, the wolf submits willingly to his trap and so on and so forth, and I can have fun with the characters and their arcs but also really mourn the game that was there, in subtext and build up over three previous games and in several tie-ins.

[imakemywings]

Varric: Me, take down the Dread Wolf? I'm flattered. Varric: No, I just came to ask you a question. So, you rebelled against the other gods, and it was a disaster. Varric: Then you imprisoned them and created the Veil, and that was a disaster. Varric: So how is this time gonna work out any better? Can you tell me that? Solas: I understand your hesitance, but what I do now must be done, despite it being past your comprehension. Varric: I'm not saying you're evil. But if you really believed in what you were doing, you'd be able to give me a straight answer. Solas: You would rather cast aspersions than admit that this is mine to solve. Varric: No mistake is worth killing innocent people over. Solas: The question is what lives, and how. My ritual will heal the world, and restore what was driven out of balance. Varric: C'mon, Chuckles. Who are you trying to convince here? Me, or yourself? Solas: Varric… Varric: You're not the first good man I've seen talk himself into a bad decision. The question is whether you can admit it.

This dialogue makes me so crazy and I mean that in a deeply pejorative way. This exchange between Solas and Varric at the start of Veilguard (which you can't actually really hear in-game) goes right to the heart of my biggest problems with the game, which is that it refuses to honestly engage with Solas and his motivations.

Varric, the terminal centrist, seems to suggest that Solas was in the wrong to rebel against the Evanuris for being tyrannical slavers. Which, given Varric's general attitude towards injustice in Kirkwall, isn't totally out of character. Except that Veilguard posits him as the moral heart of the game, so...not sure where we go with that. Is Varric suggesting they'd be better off if the Evanuris had been allowed to continue ruling until the present day?

Then, Solas refuses to give an actual reasons for why he's doing what he's doing. At least in Trespasser, he hinted at why he needed to bring down the Veil. Here, where the writers are given a chance to actually, clearly lay out Solas' motivations, they just...don't. Veilguard won't honestly interrogate either side of the debate, which results in incredibly circular dialogue throughout the game to the effect of:

Solas: I must do this. It's my mistake to fix.

Varric: You're going to drown the world in demons!

Repeat ad nauseum.

No reasons from Solas on why he needs to bring down the Veil--nothing like his Trespasser comments or even his Inquisition dialogue hinting at what the world was before the Veil. Nothing about how spirits suffer being confined exclusively to the Fade. Nothing about how the elves have suffered and been degraded since the Veil went up. Nothing at all about the uthenerai, who may have just been entirely reconned. Just "I made a mistake. I have to fix it." And then later we mix in his grief for Mythal and that's meant to explain it all.

Varric can't argue with Solas because Solas gives Varric nothing to argue against, and therefore nothing for the player to agree or disagree with. We can't have an opinion on what Solas is doing because we're never given concrete reasons why he wants to do this, except that apparently Mythal wanted this (which she never gives any indication of in any of the material we have about her)? (Demonstrably Flemythal disagrees, so this sentiment is at best out of date and at worst completely baseless.) And I've already talked about how making Solas' desire to remove the Veil stem from his personal grief for an individual rather than his desire to do justice for his people weakens his character.

Varric says that if Solas believed in what he was doing he'd give a straight answer, but that would require the game to give us a straight answer, so that can't happen. Veilguard suffers from being a game with a significant moral quandary at the center which determinedly refuses to ever interrogate that quandary.

[lafaiette]

Some spoilers for Veilguard

I'm still convinced Solas was the happiest he had ever been when he was in the Inquisition.

Addressed as a scholar and wise expert of the Fade, asked for advice on magic and lore, surrounded by people who can potentially become dear friends and respected companions, potentially falling in love with Lavellan and being seen by her as simply Solas, and not the rebel god Fen'Harel. Some people consider him a bit odd, yes, and some can't help but refer to him as "messere", after witnessing his wisdom and knowledge, and talent with ancient elven frescoes.

"He wants to give wisdom, not orders", Cole says in Trespasser, and we're all sure he's referring to him, to what really drives him, his true passion: learning and sharing knowledge, asking and answering questions, not planning rebellions, killing, and lying. And for some time, Solas was able to live that simple life, so be what he really wanted to be: a man, not a god.

Now, in Veilguard, he's forced back on the path of rebel and trickster, and he's treated just as the Evanuris treated him during his rebellion.

Everyone in Thedas is looking for him (the Venatori, the Antaam, the ex-Inquisition); everyone is talking about him, everyone knows what he did (the Veil Jumpers in Arlathan say he's "a bastard", "the god of lies", but acknowledge the good reasons behind his rebellion); his agents kill and steal in his name; Rook and their companions explore his main base and peer into all his memories and regrets without permission, because they see him as an adversary, so they feel allowed to do that.

He's not the nondescript, respected hermit mage of the Inquisitor's inner circle anymore - he's a well-known, feared, hated, misunderstood figure once again, forced to constantly flee and hide in dangerous, ruined, forgotten places (in the comic The Missing he sleeps in a small room underground, surrounded by darkspawn!).

He's under the spotlight once again, starting a ritual he doesn't really want to do ("Do you believe that I would do this if there were some other, better option?").

I think he will never be able to be friends with Rook, at least not in the same way he was able to be friends with the Inquisitor and the Inquisition companions, because his full identity is out in the open now - he's too important, too awe-inspiring to be simply seen as Solas the Fade expert. The Inquisitor, Varric, and Harding are the only ties to that innocent time he has left.

So I'm hoping he will be finally allowed to be who he really wants to be at the end of Veilguard: not a feared divine-like figure, but a scholar who wants to spread wisdom and live in peace.

[ekjohnston]

My favourite kind of villain is the one who is actually a lot like the protagonist, but makes wildly different choices. For example, both Katniss and Snow are starving and selfish, living in the shadow of dead fathers with an unreliable parental figure left in charge, but from that point, they are very, very different, and it's because of choices they make.

I think that's one reason that I like my Rook so much. Because Rook and Solas have a lot in common. They're both unlikely heroes of causes they didn't entirely mean to be part of. They're both trusted with the well-being of countless strangers and dear friends. They're both faced with a lot of hard choices. They're both going to be remembered, whether they like the story or not.

But they make different choices. Rook chooses to build a team, to reinforce the bonds between her friends, to trust them with information, and to keep going forward, even when it's hard. Solas chooses, over and over and over, the exact opposite: he uses people and justifies their deaths, he murders his friends, he's convinced he's the only solution, and above all else, he will not let go of his idealized version of the past, unable to imagine that a world built by beings other than him could be a good one.

I find it really therapeutic to play videogames in general, because I love the idea of being able to help people and make life better for my friends. Veilguard dials that up to 11 the way ME2 did, in that everyone's survival relies on how good at team building you are. My Rook builds bridges and opens doors. She doesn't have to, but she likes it. And so do I.

Veilguard is, literally and figuratively, a game about mirrors, and Rook is at its heart, making better choices than the gods who came before them, because they choose to.

Solas is a great villain because you get him. You really do. You love him and you want him to change. You keep trying, even as you learn all of the horrifying things he has done, because that's what you do. Even when you realize that the world he is so desperate to restore never really existed (and the parts that did sucked for like 90% of the people involved), and that he has no plan for what comes after, you try. Because you're the hero. And that's what you do.

And then you stand above Minrathous, with a knife in your hand and a god at your feet and, if you've chosen well, all of your friends behind you. Solas only gets what you give him, in the end. And because the game is very, very clever, he deserves all three endings.

Rook has made their final choice and saved the world from a monster who was determined to break it, no matter what they choose.

[carolinaspring]

The Veilguard Didn't Save The Veil.

First off, I don't think Veilguard is a bad game. Alone, it's okay. As a DA game, and a game that was set up to be a sequel to Inquisition, it felt a little hollow to me. Again, I don't hate the game, but it just felt off.

No Keep carrying over aside, my main complaint with the story is this:

Solas' main motivation for taking down the veil changed.

Hold on! Hold on! Hear me out first...

1) His purpose is to take down the veil "for his people" and reclaim the time of the elves.

He stated to Flemmeth in Trespasser that "The people... They need me." In fact, he has stated and hinted at this multiple times prior to this game.

I know some of you could still argue that that doesn't change, but the way it is never talked about in Veilguard makes it appear like it has. Allow me to better explain with point two...

2) His regret was largely for his people, not himself or Mythal.

Regret was supposed to be the theme of Veilguard. Okay, nothing wrong with themes, and we saw in Tevinter Nights that a Regret demon formed in Skyhold from Solas' stay there. So, I didn't mind this being what they tried to showcase more in this game. My problem was what his main regret was showcased as.

Solas, being immortal, undoubtedly lived long enough to have much to regret. I do too, and I'm in my twenties! But never has he ever hinted at or stated before the game that he is motivated to take down the veil to make himself feel better for the unforseen consequences of it's creation, nor that he is doing it still because of Mythal.

He once destroyed the world (unintentionally) for the one he loved, and now he is doomed to destroy the ones he loves to "save" the world.

THAT is something to regret. THAT (to me at least), is more narratively interesting. But I digress into point three. . .

3) The veil was going to come down anyway.

Don't scream at me yet! I swear I have proof!

How many times throughout Inquisition did we hear him say "The veil is thin here"? Yes, yes, I know the Breach and rifts didn't help, but this has been happening throughout Thedas before that happened.

The veil has been thinned since it's creation due to wars, sacrifices, blights, ect. (See picture below and where they coordinate.)

Even with the Evenuris and old gods that are still trapped, it was coming down. Solas had to do something! Reguardless on how you feel about HOW he is going about it, you can at least see WHY.

Even with Solas trapped in the fade, the veil will come down eventually, because it was never meant to be made to begin with. Maybe it will be thousands or millions of years, but it will come down, which means...

4) Trapping Solas in the fade is not a permanent solution.

Seriously, though I doubt we are ever getting another DA game, if we do, they should at least address this.

P.S.

Thank you for reading. I just needed to start this conversation because I haven't seen anyone address this yet. 😭

[queenrizzardnthelizardscissored]

now that the veilguard dust has settled im kinda just left feeling a bit... sad. like idk how to explain it. its like all the love i had for this series and the world was kinda shattered by it. like. i can either view it as a mid fantasy game on its own, or some kinda dragon-age-themed themepark ride, or i can make it canon and this is really what everything was building up to.

it just feels like everything i loved abt the series was sanitized and removed, and i cant even really get angry abt it bc it feels so sterile. like the thing about mages and how apparently they just are normal people now. as someone who struggles w/ mental health, including issues that make me hyperfocus and make a lot of stuff, or make me compulsive about weird random things, and then make me lethargic or annoying to everyone else, the way that mages worked in these games was so. idk. brutal but also relatable. it didnt feel like they sugarcoated the mental health issues, but it also didnt feel like they dehumanized these characters. they're all so human and we can see that they dont deserve agony or suffering or to have their minds destroyed and live w/o emotion (this in particular was affecting to me given my journey w/ psychiatric medication) but also that they need support networks, they need people to help them and hold them up and also say no sometimes and keep them from being their worst selves. but the core horror of that, of these people marginalized everywhere which just worsens their mental health issues, of these people tormented all the time by dreams they cannot control who have just accepted it, that there's nothing they can do to get better, of these people whose greatest strength is also their weakness, the core horror is just gone from DAV. it doesnt even care about it.

it also doesnt care about the injustice of the world. the thing that is so poignant about these games is that the world is not simple and that there is never a big bad. the 'big bads' that exist are there not as conventional villains you're meant to hate (nobody thought the darkspawn was a compelling villain, nor, really, demons? DA2 doesn't have a villain, really, just a bunch of sad people pushed to their limits who do horrible, horrible things bc they believe it's right), but as things that disrupt society, confront existing systems and exploit their weaknesses and demand change, or everyone will be annihilated. but in DAV, these societal weaknesses either aren't there or are distilled down to one or two bad guys from whom the whole 'evil' descends. it has villains that are gods that were worshipped for so long, and now turn out to be kinda insane and evil. this is, in my opinion, NOT the direction dragon age should go (i wish that DAI hadn't done the Solas thing, the veil should've remained intact and we should focus more on politics, on how the world rebuilds after the mage-templar war, what the qunari are doing, on small scale people's lives), but. it is what was done, and there's still a lot of potential there. Solas is a great character in DAI even if I think they should've gone in another direction. he challenges the worldviews of literally every character. so does the existence of these gods.

but the thing is that they end up not challenging anyone. the venatori, who, reminder, are human supremacist nationalists that hate the elvhen people and are extremely revanchist, side instantly with the gods the elvhen worshipped, for seemingly no reason, other than that they're Both Evil. The elvhen instantly recognize the gods are Evil and side against them. Solas is now One Guy rather than a thing that tests the boundaries of society. I'm not sure if this was because the game is rushed, or, and this is more what i suspect, the devs didnt want the players to have to confront the obvious and extremely difficult choice of potentially siding with the slavers and racists for what is, in universe, the 'greater good', even though that would be a fucking fascinating place for the game to go, especially if your Rook was elvhen. rather than examining these hate groups, or the structure of a society that builds itself on hatred and systemic injustice, the game just goes the easy route by turning their evil from something real and thus frightning due to the fact it exists in real life, can be seen in flags and posters on the roadside if you're in some parts of America, to some absolute unimpeachable evil that cannot be analyzed nor reasoned with. Imagine if they, for instance, explored Tevinter politics. a super crude version of this, which sucks and i have put little thought into, is to examine the way in which fascism and slavery upholds the social order. by positioning the elvhen below even human slaves and non mages, there's always someone lower for them to target and jeer at, and so they ignore the fact that they themselves are being fucked over by both the overarching structures at play and the people perpetrating them. instead, the game did none of these things, and did not even make the canon slavers in the canon slave country, (whose buisness of slave-trading and capture is tacitly accepted by rulers of Southern countries because even there, the elvhen are seen as second class), OWN SLAVES. We see none of this, none of the broad-scale social evils of inequality or the horrors of slavery and systemic racism, and so beyond avoiding the difficulty of having the player maybe have to temporarily side with and/or attempt to end slavery and the systems in it, *even when it affects their own people*, we just remove it all together. the relatable, realistic, *banal* evils are replaced with cackling villain laughter and dramatic designs.

the fact that we've torn apart and destroyed actual evil for the sake of replacing it with a caricature necessarily means the characters are less complex, which is fucking sad because there's so much genius on display with these character concepts. Harding's journey in particular could've been great, with her anger at the way her people have been fucked over present and past, and her either controlling it or embracing it. If you wanted to tie it back to the main story (which companion quests always sort of should thematically), you could have her realizing that the elvhen were just as fucked over by the evanuris as she and her people. Taash's quest about discovering their gender and the way that things are lost in cultural translation could've been great, if it leveraged the way the qunari work. the qunari have a very different system of gender than humans or elvhen or dwarves, though, importantly, just as restrictive. their journey could've dealt with actually integrating and synthesizing these cultures, and with breaking down both models of gender and how they fail to account for and capture the actual lived experienced of people, instead imposing a false dichotomy on them. In human countries, gender shapes work, in the qunari, work shapes one's gender. How could these equally repressive things be integrated or dealt with? Think about how cool this would've been to do ! there's so much cultural worldbuilding potential as well as the actual journey of these characters. but instead, we import a phrase from the real world that is characteristic of our present moment. historical cultures have had all sorts of different understandings of gender than our current system, not necessarily more or less restrictive (well, more restrictive if we consider the recent past in the West) but different. the identity of nonbinary is meaningfully different from that of "similar" positions in other cultures. in fact, dragon age already kind of already began to deal with this, albeit in a very-2014 way. It's just so dissapointing from both a queer perspective and a worldbuilding perspective. every quest is like this, a genius little kernel of an idea that instead of being expanded on and reshaped through the lens of the world we're in, is destroyed and made into the simplest, worst version of itself.

while we're at it, let's talk about souls. it's one thing that the enavuris exist. fine. i don't think that they needed to do that, but there were a lot of cool things that could be done with it, and i get why they made that decision, even if they didn't expand on it. but the whole thing about the enavuris is that they ARENT GODS! there are no confirmed gods in Dragon Age, and no confirmed afterlife. Remember Justinia in Inquisition and how it was a spirit that copied the imprint of her mind and personality on the fade? remember the same thing with Cole? Remember how Leilana can die and come back as a spirit that really, genuinely believes it is Leilana, but is, by the most physical of definition, 'not'? (insert metaphysics and debates about consciousness here).

The reason the fade and spirits are so damn good is because they are not as simple as an afterlife. what they are, as is clearly communicated, are impressions of reality and information. to put it another way, the fade reflects the perceptions and shapes and information about reality. the spirits that exist are not 100% truthful, and not because they're lying, but because their very existence is shaped by others beliefs. information gleaned from the fade is not 100% reliable, because how the fade looks and what happens in it can be manipulated not just by demons but by belief. There's a great bit with Solas from early in Inquisition where he talks about a battlefield that changes shape, changes events, based on whether the spirit he's talking to is closer to the losing or winning side. How damn great is that? the spirits aren't literal ghosts, but OUR CULTURAL MEMORY. the way they exist is so damn good, the way they carry on cultural traumas and beliefs. While we're at it, think about how this ties in to mages, who are tormented by spirits. They are literally tormented by cultural trauma and pain that persists even after the original victims and original perpetrators are long gone. God that's so great. What dying does is unclear, just like real life. What persists after death is your 'legacy,' warped by what other people thing of you. this ambiguity is great because whether or not an afterlife exists is unclear, but also, the 'soul' supposedly passes through the fade before dying. This system of magic, where spirits are not malevolent nor kind nor truthful, but formed by density of information and strong belief and cultural memory, is very unique. The closest thing to it is the spheres in the Witcher, and even that's different. In veilguard, souls exist and they are literally echoes of people and are 100% accurate.

The themes of Dragon Age, up to DAV, have been about cultural memory, about how beliefs impact actions impact beliefs, about (to borrow a really good comment on an early post) the truth of what religion makes us do rather than the 'truth' of what religion is. Think of how this magic system of spirits that are influenced by belief and cultural memory and raw strength of emotion that persists and impacts others even when the original person to feel those emotions is dead ties in to these themes. It's so beautiful, genuinely, even if the game does not explicitly explore it. Now think about how this all is lost when we make it so that souls explicitly exist and can be reserructed and spoken to.

Even aside from the broader themes, think about the potential that was there for the Mortalitasi. Rather than just being straightforward necromancers, if we applied old Dragon Age rules, the spirits they would summon from the corpses of people were not actually those people, but what their living relatives think of those people. How brutal and awesome and sad is that? That there is no true way to speak to the dead, only to speak to your conception of the dead. It's so beautiful, and sad, and honestly hurts my chest a bit to think about. Not only is that gone, but the concept it made way for - the existence of liches - falls way short and is in fact made actively worse by this change. So, liches are souls of mages possessing/controlling their own corpses, if I understand it right. Imagine if the 'souls' were not truly the original person, but a spriit imitating them. Not only does this make the whole thing bittersweet - it means that a person is sacrificing their life to cement a sort of constant legacy, because they are too afraid of dying without an impact of the world - but it means that a person who becomes a lich is taking this risk. Imagine if everyone hates that person, and so the new spirit that is now 'them' is an asshole. They have become, literally, the person everyone thinks they are. That's such a poignant and genius idea that is stripped away for, what? Literally just generic fantasy DND liches? It's. just. the loss is so sad. Especially since the theme of the character who has the option to turn into a lich is that of fear of death. What better way to show that fear of death ruins the way they LIVE than by making the new person not literally be them? By exchanging their life and happiness therein for a legacy? It's so beautiful and yet. gone.

the game, despite being on its own a really pretty but ultimately mediocre action RPG, feels like such an overwhelming loss because it not only destroys the world in which it is meant to be set but also because it seems to ignore the potential inherent in its own story. I am not a dragon age writer, and thank god for that, because I suck at writing, but if I was, i would've made the game more small-scale and poltiical and focus on ideology and fear and radicalism and acceptance rather than gods. TO be clear - I'm not mad that they didn't do that alternate game. I'm sad that they did this different idea, about the gods coming back, and then didn't do it well or even commit to their own idea.

and beyond that is the fact that it wants so badly to simultaneously distance itself from the previous games while also calling back all the time. the issue is that that could never be done, because the game is, inextricably, a sequel to a 2014 game that ended with a clear setup for a sequel this game expands upon. The game brings back this character from the previous game as a main villain, but because it also wants so badly to distance itself from the previous games, it makes him flatter, unreactive to the decisions and contexts of the previous games. The Solas of DAV is like the Solas of DAI immediately after waking up. The game brings back Varric despite him being in two previous games, and then proceeds to make him NOT Varric for most of the game. It brings back a companion from DA2 only to have her dress up in the worst outfit ever and not reference anything or be changed by her experiences, and then she fucks off. It has a plot inextricably tied to religion, but barely mentions Andraste or the Maker once, even in conversation among a group of casual believers, even as an exclamation. At the same time, the game is set in a nation completely different to the one of previous games, but it doesn't actually exploit that for any purpose. Rather, it destroys everything from the previous games. It makes it so the South is torn asunder, and yet our characters don't seem to care. Everyone from the previous games is implied to be dead, Hawke, maybe Cassandra, the HoF, Sera, Fenris (which is not in this game because they realized that having him here would expose the fact this game has ignored slavery entirely), Merrill, Josephine, Blackwall, Vivienne, everyone. At the same time they bring back a character from DAI who should've known these people for years, and she somehow goes on camping trips while the 6th and 7th blight destroys her home and everyone she's ever known. The game does not want to actually interact with the previous media, or the worldbuidling therein, but at the same time it must somehow remind you it is, in fact, a dragon age game, and so it must bring back and puppet around these characters and ideas just to show you they exist.

It's just so sad, but also kind of inevitable, and any solution would be terrible, because this game comes out 10 years after the previous entry. If they made it a direct sequel, where you play as Inky again, which would be the most logical thing to do, new players wouldn't get it, because why the fuck would they? They'd have to play a whole other 10 y/o game just to start this one. If they had you play as a small-scale character doing a side-ish story that ties into the main plot, a la DA2, with an inquisitor that chooses what to do w/o your input based on DAI choices, which would've been my preferred option, since it meant your character could be new and interesting without feeling out of place, everyone would've rightfully been mad that all the big world ending stuff is happening to someone else (which I think would actually be really cool for a narrative, to feel so helpless, tossed about by the world while you struggle to survive, but I can also see why they didnt want to do that.) If they did a time-skip, say, to the next Age, and had Solas defeated offscreen, which I think would actually be the best as far as creating a new series with divergence while also maintaining the lore and theming w/o having to account for player choices, well, this I think would've been the best game of the lot, but everyone, including the writers, would've been fucking pissed to not see an end to their story, to just have them live their lives and defeat Solas off-screen. So in the end, they're left with a sort of weird hybrid, where we play as a new character but also it's a direct sequel but also we're the one doing world-changing events but also there's a time skip during which nothing happened somehow, but everyone is still around just older. Even if this was well-done, and had artistic integrity and no interference due to market decisions, this would be a very hard balance to strike. But that's not what was done. Instead, the game started as a single player campaign, then was redone to make an MMO, then a raid game, then co-op action, then live service, then back to single-player again, and then rushed to recoup costs. With that in mind, it's really not *awful*. And then, of course, there was the bullshit "wokeism!!111!" assholes, as if the first game didn't have both gay and lesbian relationships, the second didn't have the same, the third didn't have both of those and also a canon trans character. It's just sad that it ended like this, with everything, including, somehow, my retroactive enjoyment of the series, being destroyed. I know it's stupid to not like old things because of the new thing, but. idk. it's this weird involuntary reflex. Ah well. I loved this world and its characters so much and now it just kinda feels hollow. :(

[postcardsfromheapside]

One of my favorite books (a story about a serial killer, no less) starts "I have long been fascinated by the notion that knowledge can be created about the past."

The idea was that time, and a zoomed out perspective, and research, provides one with insight that people living in the time and space being examined couldn't possibly know.

This is sort of how I feel about Veilguard.

Solas discussion under the break.

Once Veilguard came out, so many things changed their context due to the insight provided by "time" and perspective.

In the interaction depicted here, the person I snipped this from feels that this is heartwarming. I've made no denial in the past that I found Solas irritating in the way he treated the Dalish, and always told him as such in the game, but seeing this feels especially frustrating post-Veilguard. Instead of reading this as him feeling shamed, I now see his pride being appeased.

"Oh, but he was treated badly by the Dalish he encountered-"

Solas is, for lack of a better term, a god. He is not only an adult, he ought to functionally and emotionally be above the petty blows of mortals who he continues to see as children. Instead, his pride is hurt when he isn't accepted by the Dalish (we later learn that, according to him, he attempted to reveal himself and they not only didn't accept him, but continued worshipping his rival, which I'm sure did not help his pride). He belittles the Dalish, and only feels appeased when Lavellan speaks to him in a humbled manner.

It's maddening, because later in Skyhold, he has a moment in which he wonders if the Dalish aren't so bad...because they produced Lavellan.

And yet...he learns nothing from this. He never changes his mind about the Dalish. He tries to convince Lavellan to remove her vallaslin, an important cultural marker, and maybe succeeds, but leaves her regardless. By the time we get through the end fight of Veilguard, if you have Davrin with you, Solas verbally jabs at him, asking if he's told the Dalish all about how awful he is (is this really the most important thing to be talking about right now, Solas?) and it's only when Davrin reminds him of how they're cleaning up HIS mess at the moment, that Solas subsides.

Almost everything about what he does feels as if he has to be reminded that he's the uber-adult here, with thousands of years of experience and knowledge. He ought to be the only regulating himself. And yet every single time, it's a mortal having to do the one wrangling him.

I hope you all know, I think Solas is a great antagonist. He's acted by GDL to the hilt, and I thought his performance in Veilguard was fucking masterful and I enjoyed every minute of interacting with him.

But holy shit, Lavellans, I just think y'all deserve better. Maybe a Pete Davidson.

[mllemaenad]

Seanna is ... really feeling that brand on her face at the moment.

We decided you were dangerous, so we branded your face and declared you a non-person is a very familiar idea for her.

Also, knowing what we do about the Rite of Tranquility, and about the titans, I wonder if this similarity isn't intentional.

I'm beginning to get an uncomfortable feeling about the casteless, and what was originally done to them.

We know that the Seekers of Truth used the Rite of Tranquility as an initiation test for centuries, and that they were the ones who developed its use specifically as a means of controlling mages:

We called it the Rite of Tranquility: a mind, branded with lyrium, brought to a state devoid of either emotion or sense of self. The rite was required to achieve the true peace that could draw a spirit of faith from the depths of the Fade. A difficult task, considering a Tranquil mind is all but invisible to these beings. The candidate must be pure. If the candidate proved worthy, the spirit would touch his mind… and he would be freed from Tranquility as well as made into a Seeker in truth. If he proved unworthy, Tranquility was permanent. It was only later, when the first mage attempted to join our Order and failed, that we learned Tranquility rendered a mage unable to access his magic, as well as immune to demonic possession. Thus, when the Circle of Magi was born, we gave them the most holy rite we possessed. It was a sacrifice we made for the good of all, so dangerous mages could be spared execution and yet live productive and harmonious lives. What we did not give them was the secret of its reversal. That knowledge, and our ancient bond with the spirits of faith, shall forever be solely ours to keep. —An excerpt from Cassandra's tome on the Seekers of Truth

– The Rite of Tranquility

We don't really know how the Seekers came by the ritual, however, nor how they came to realise it could bring them power. We know that in very ancient times that Solas did something very similar to the titans, using a lyrium blade. We also know from Feynriel's quest that a mage who dies in the Fade is rendered Tranquil, so there are multiple potential paths to discovery.

Maybe, though, this rite is really, really old.

The thing about casteless dwarves is that they are rejected by the Stone. From an official perspective, they do not have Stone sense:

We are the Children of the Stone. She supports us, shelters us, offers us the most priceless gifts of the earth. The worthy return to her embrace in death, becoming Ancestors. The unworthy are cast out, unable to rest, that their failings may not weaken the Stone. So it has been since the earliest memories. We live by the Stone, guided by the Ancestors, who speak with the voice of the Provings, and whose memories the Shaperate keeps forever in lyrium. We do not accept the empty promises of heaven as the wild elves do, or vie for the favor of absent gods. Instead, we follow in the footsteps of our Paragons—the greatest of our ancestors, warriors, craftsmen, leaders, the greatest examples of lives spent in service to our fellow dwarves. Our Paragons joined with the Stone in life, and now stand watch at our gate, ushering in those surfacers privileged to visit our city. We know there is no greater honor to hope for, no better reward for an exceptional life. —As told by Shaper Czibor – Dwarven Faith

All surface-dwelling dwarves are considered casteless by default, and that is because they are "stone-blind". To be casteless is to reject, or be rejected by, the Stone. And to be rejected by the Stone is to lack Stone sense.

We also know, from Harding's personal quest in Veilguard, that Stone sense is not simply a matter of being well-adapted to life underground. It is a form of magic, not wholly unlike that performed by other Thedosian races.

Solas's mutilation functionally rendered the titans Tranquil. They are cut off from their dreams. However, the titans are profoundly magical beings. It's not simply their minds or dreams that are connected to the Fade, but their bodies as well: their blood is lyrium, and lyrium is profoundly magical. One of the key things about lyrium is that it exists in both the physical world and the Fade.

In its raw form, lyrium emits a strangely soothing sound that some call the voice of the Maker. The Chantry claims the mineral is a remnant from the birth of the world, when the Maker created the land and the skies. They believe lyrium is not so much the essence of magic as the essence of all creation. Lyrium's appearance in the Fade suggests it somehow bridges the gap between the dreamer's world and the waking world of Thedas. – The World of Thedas, Volume 1

It is, I think, deliberately difficult to imagine what the world was like before the creation of the Veil. It was a different reality that operated by different rules. But whatever that world was, titans were exquisitely adapted to live in it. Their bodies existed simultaneously in the Fade and outside it, without difficulty or contradiction.

So, while the titans have functionally been rendered Tranquil by Solas's knife, despite what "everyone knows" dwarves still remain connected to the Fade (via the titans) because the titans' bodies remain connected to the Fade (via lyrium).

Dwarves have always done magic and dwarves continue to do magic to the present day. They just don't call it that.

Contact with the lyrium dagger has undeniably supercharged Harding's abilities. For most dwarves, Stone sense seems to require extremely close proximity to a titan (which is why surface dwarves don't seem to have it) and it manifests as a passive ability: they can sense things that others can't.

We also know that one must have Stone sense in order to become a Shaper.

The blessing of the Shaperate is given only to those who walk with the Stone. It is a path that cuts deep and the road is far from secure, but those who desire to work in memory must first honor it. Document the Stone, protect her, and present a new history to the Memories. Only then will the blessing of the Shaperate be upon you. – The Shaper's Life

As in most Thedosian cultures, mages perform a religious function. Not that all dwarves with Stone sense are Shapers – there's clear evidence of them among the miners, for instance – but the Stone sense of the Shaperate is what connects the dwarves to the Memories, and the true will of the Stone. I mean, unless politics intervene, but that's a whole different meta.

With all that established: back to the Tranquil.

Both casteless dwarves and Tranquil are branded. In the modern era, casteless dwarves are branded shortly after birth, and while no one in Orzammar can control what surfacers do they are expected to wear a brand if they visit the city. Both kinds of casteless are functionally marked as soon as they arrive in Orzammar – the moment they get close to the Stone. And the brand, in the case of the Tranquil, cuts them off from the Fade, damages their connection to their emotions and prevents them from doing magic.

To be clear, I don't think the brand on Seanna's face is doing a damn thing. The dwarves have largely forgotten why they do many of the things they do. It's a marking of her social status, and has no bearing on her Stone sense.

This guy's brand is very literally drawn on with a pen:

It's not real.

But what if it used to be real?

In practice, if a surface dwelling dwarf were to return to Orzammar, and they were naturally inclined to have Stone sense, they would likely develop it from proximity to a titan. But if you felt that those dwarves had sinned against the ancestors and the very Stone itself ... well, you might not want that to happen.

So maybe you mark their faces with a special lyrium brand, in a ritual now lost to time, and you cut them off from the Stone.

We know the dwarves were driven underground during the war with the evanuris. They didn't always live there.

Many of these pages are filled with sketches of elven statues matching the ones found in the area, along with notes and what look like attempts to practice Qunlat: They say the agents of Fen'Harel caused trouble in the Crossroads. I wish I knew. I wish whoever fights in the name of the old wolf was around to fight when the darkspawn took my clan. Mine is not to question. I have chosen the Qun. The Qun will protect me. Rethost: You all protect Rethadim: They all protect Rethsaam: We all protect These statues are older than anything I saw in my days with the clan. The area's dwarven, though. What were the ancient elves doing down here? Mining? Where were the dwarves? Easier to have them mine it. Not a trading post. You don't go into a friend's home, knock over their gods, and put up your own. War? I don't remember any legends about our people fighting the dwarves. Though I remember my Keeper telling a story about how the dwarves fear the sun because of Elgar'nan's fire. A metaphor for the elves of Arlathan driving the dwarves underground? The Qunari like metaphors. I should share that. – Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 2

So I'm wondering ... maybe the core of the casteless were always surfacers. Dwarves who did not go underground with that first migration. There's evidence that another option was on the table: take a ship to somewhere else.

We know that there seem to be dwarven populations beyond Thedas.

If one journeys west across the Anderfels, one will reach the settlement of Laysh. Once a sprawling port town, Laysh largely fell to ruin after the Third Blight ... but not, as one might suppose, due to darkspawn attacks. The entire purpose of Laysh was to receive ships from across the Volca Sea, odd-looking cargo vessels that would arrive laden with wares and spices of a like never seen in Thedas. The trade was lucrative enough to justify Laysh's existence even in such harsh territory, at least until the traders stopped coming in the early Black Age. According to Ander legend, these traders were called Voshai. They were also said to be hostile to the people of Laysh, completely uninterested in learning the king's tongue for anything more than barter, and almost obsessively interested in acquiring lyrium. Also of interest are the tales that said the captains of every Voshai ship were dwarves, treated with such deference that it implied dwarves held a place of profound power in their society ... or, at the very least, among the seafarers of their culture. In contrast, there are no reports of elves on Voshai ships. While Laysh was hardly a port of sufficient size to build sturdy ships, it is said that several Tevinter merchant houses banded together to mount an expedition, with the thought, "If they won't come to us, we'll go to them." The expedition did not return, and neither did the few vessels that followed, until eventually all interest in the Voshai faded. Reports in recent years suggest the Volshai ships may have returned to Laysh, supposedly carrying tales of a "massive cataclysm" in their homeland – the reason for their absence, perhaps? – though the truth of these reports is questionable at best. – The Mysterious West, The World of Thedas Volume 2

The fact that the dwarves are undertaking what seems to be a long and perilous journey in order to trade lyrium with a civilisation they specifically do not want to talk to strongly suggests to me that the Voshai homeland does not have lyrium. This, in turn, suggests to me that it does not have titans and that these dwarves are not Voshai natives, but rather ancient transplants who chose to flee across the sea rather than underground.

But that's a rough choice.

And it is clear that the evanuris settled into triumph and cruelty, and a not insignificant portion of that cruelty was directed toward the dwarves.

Many of these pages are filled with sketches of elven statues matching the ones found in the area, along with notes and what look like attempts to practice Qunlat: Trying to remember that old bedtime song about Mythal. My mother sang it the night before the darkspawn came for my clan. It's the last time I ever heard her voice. Ir sa tel'nal, Mythal las ma theneras. Ir san'a emma. Him solas evanuris. Da'durgen'lin, Banal malas elgara. Bellanaris, bellanaris. Written beside each elven line is a corresponding phrase, likely a translation: I am empty, filled with nothing(?), Mythal gives you dreams. It fills you, within you(?), Making our leaders proud. My little stones, Never yours the sun. Forever, forever. Hahren said we had lost some of the old words. What if they have changed? Durgen'lin from durgen'len? Little dwarves, never yours the sun? What did Mythal do here? Something's wrong. The lights in the walls are fading. Going to find help. It's not safe. Without light… Itwa-ost: You all fall Itwa-adim: They all fall Itwasaam: We all fall – Torn Notebook in the Deep Roads, Section 3

Well. Maybe some of the dwarves who initially picked the sea had second thoughts about that, and instead wanted to go underground. They couldn't stay on the surface, and the ships heading west were going or gone. I wonder if they arrived in the early thaigs as refugees. And I wonder if those thaigs imposed a terrible penalty upon them: they had rejected the Stone so now, even if they sheltered within it, the Stone would not take them back

I'm wondering if the casteless were Tranquil before there were Tranquil.

Okay. And then let's take this back a step further.

Where did this idea even come from? Why this, rather than killing the titans? And how did Solas have any idea what the outcome would be? It strongly implies that, while this may well be the first time something of this scale had been attempted, it is not the first time something of this type had happened.

Tranquility predates the sundering of the titans.

So where did it come from? Well, it all goes back to Isatunoll.

Isatunoll seems to have been the core, founding principle of prehistoric dwarven society.

Harding, How can anything be both all and one, together but separate? It doesn't make sense, does it? But of course it doesn't make sense. You can't make sense of an idea without a word to define it, to give it shape and boundary. Maybe "isatunoll" is a word we forgot. And then we forgot that isatunoll was possible. Think about ants. Ants know what they are. They know their purpose, and they must understand, instinctually, how that purpose fits within the whole. But what if it doesn't end there? What if their consciousness isn't just individual? What if the nest itself knew what it was? A collective sentience of some kind. Nothing says the ants don't have a collective sentience. We just assume they don't, because they're ants. Ants. Or bees. Or darkspawn. Now, there's a thought. Love, Dagna. Inquisition Arcanist – Thoughts on "Isatunoll"

So what do you do with people who transgress against that society? Well, even in the modern day exile is a popular choice in dwarven society – see the Dwarf Noble, Gorim, the entire Tethras family, and so on.

But if you have a collective consciousness, how do you do exile? Sure, you can make a guy you don't like stand over there, but if he's still connected to the Stone does that really matter?

So maybe. Maybe. You define exile as cut off from the Stone. As a people, you must be familiar with the properties of the bodies of the titans: they are your gods and your ancestors. So maybe you know that, while that lyrium is part of what grants your connection to the Stone, if prepared the right way it can also sever a person's connection to the Stone.

To a prehistoric dwarf, that would be true exile, and like modern-day Tranquility, a fate worse than death.

Maybe the casteless weer Tranquil before even the titans were.

Just a thought.

[simpforsolas]

thoughts on how veilguard could've improved rook's and solas's character arcs

So I've been thinking about Veilguard nonstop since I finished it last night. I want to preface this with the fact that I liked many things about it a lot. While I do have my criticisms, it was probably the most fun I had actually playing a Dragon Age game. They made a lot of improvements in a lot of ways. But while I enjoyed (for the most part) what was there in the game, the entire time I just had the feeling that it was missing something (or maybe more accurately, a lot of things). This post won't go into all of those things, but I want to really delve into the biggest missed opportunity in the game: Rook's character arc and how it could have impacted Solas.

I found that Rook’s character arc was somewhat overtaken by the companions. But there was great potential for a phenomenal arc for them: what kind of hero will you be? From the beginning, Rook was set up to be a mirror to Solas. They remind Solas of who he was when he first started his rebellion: passionate, idealistic, wanting to make the world a better place. Basically, the quintessential hero. But Solas didn't stay that way. In pursuit of his noble goals, he made so many sacrifices and caused so much destruction that he accidentally became the villain. So if Rook is Solas's mirror, the logical conclusion is that Rook should've had the opportunity to reflect BOTH sides of Solas with two different paths: the "pure" hero path, or the "dark" villain path. Allowing two different paths for a protagonist in a game like this is tough, so I understand why it doesn't usually happen, but in this case, I think it would work because "pure" or "dark" path, Rook's ultimate goal would remain the same: stop the gods. The only thing that would change would be the way they go about pursuing that goal.

How would this work in practice?

For the pure path, Rook would err on the side of protecting people. Examples of this could include: giving characters like the mayor and Illario a second chance instead of killing them, making the choice in an either/or scenario to save lives instead of going after the gods, refusing to make deals with demons for more power to help them in their fight. Pure Rook is basically what we got in the game so I don't need to go further on this, but Solas watching a pure Rook would be moved by what he sees. In Rook, he would see a reflection of what he could've been if he hadn't been corrupted and trapped by his own overwhelming guilt.

For the dark path, Rook would be willing to get their hands dirty and make questionable choices if it helped their ultimate cause of defeating the gods. Examples of this could include the opposite of above: killing Illario and the mayor, choosing to sacrifice people (such as the Dalish hostages) in order to not lose an opportunity to go after the gods, and making deals with the demons in Hossberg in exchange for power to help the fight. The motivation behind each of these decisions wouldn't be selfishness, it would be pragmatism. Making the choice that would give us the best chance against the gods, no matter the cost. Solas watching this Rook would feel validated in the choices he made. Rook reflects Solas's own downward spiral of a journey, in seeing yourself become the villain as you try to be the hero. He would see that when tasked with the near impossible task of stopping tyranny, Rook was willing to get their hands dirty, just like he was.

Giving Rook the agency to choose what kind of hero they want to be would tie in with themes the game already started, but didn't exactly deliver on. Solas asks the question "what will they call you, when this over?" and by the end of the game it's like, "well they'll probably call me that one nice dude who saved the world through friendship." But if they had the chance to become sort of Dread Wolfy themself, then that line would carry a lot more weight.

Now that we've established what a two-path Rook could've looked like, I want to explore a little more how that could've impacted Solas. I, personally, wasn't the biggest fan of Solas changing his mind only being made possible by Mythal releasing him from her service. For a few reasons, but what I'm going to focus on here is that it made his redemption into this one-event thing, instead of an overarching journey that could've taken place over the course of the game. What I think should've happened is that depending on Rook's path, Solas is either a) shown a new path that he could've taken or b) validated in the path that he took. Additionally, through conversations with Solas, you could challenge his worldview, or you could reinforce it. If you did a pure path Rook, Solas would basically be prepped to ultimately be receptive to the inquisitor/Mythal's attempts to appeal to him and get him to change his mind, while dark path Rook would reinforce Solas’s worldview so strongly that no one would be able to get through to him, and his mind couldn’t be changed. This way, his outcome would feel more like a culmination of choices instead of a one moment thing, you'd have more of a chance to see the gradual shift of his attitude, and Rook would have a more interesting character arc.

[cavka]

so there's a lot to be said about the weird lionization of the crows in veilguard and i've seen other people talk about it real well. but one thing that's been sticking with me is what happens post-game. or what, in a world that plays by the original rules of the crows, would likely happen post-game.

dialogue implies lucanis is very aware of the fact that he's in a hella delicate position politically after he's made first talon. he's got a contract to finish but he doesn't know how long he'll be able to "put off" the rest of the crows. and he's been saddled with a Very Important Title, even if it's still caterina calling the shots--for now.

because that's where you leave his story: in a tense limbo that's bound to snap.

illario, whether you imprison him or forgive him, is always going to be known as the traitor crow now and the crows do not deal well with traitors. especially since it wasn't just them he betrayed, it was all of antiva. sure, they'll appreciate the poetic justice of him living in disgrace for a while.

but that's clearly just because no one wants to piss off caterina dellamorte.

how much longer does she have? not just in terms of her natural lifespan. a lot of the mystique and shine of her reputation has to have worn off now that all the crows know illario was able to capture her and imprison her. sure, it was with the help of the venatori, but if anything, some crows are bound to take that as a challenge.

house dellamorte has only survived this long because caterina was holding it together with her grit and iron fist. if she dies, or is injured, the whole house of cards comes crashing down. illario won't be protected anymore. house dellamorte will be just lucanis, then. and, sure, he's a god-killer now. but he's also an abomination who very obviously doesn't want to be first talon, even if he knows that's what he's been groomed for his entire life.

so what happens, when caterina's health fails, or someone gets a lucky shot it, or a disgruntled and ambitious crow finally gets fed up with the fact that illario was allowed to live?

lucanis may have allies in viago and teia, but i highly doubt that's enough to save him should the rest of the crows fight for the seat of first talon again. or, hell, even just decide they don't want an abomination as first talon.

either he dies or he spends the rest of his life on the run, much like zevran. there's no real other option. not without some serious political maneuvering that i can't help but think lucanis would hate even if he would just resign himself to it because, well, this is what he was made for, isn't it?

so much of veilguard's story is about leaving behind the terrible things in the past, only taking the good with you, and working for a better future. but lucanis? he can't do that. he's stuck. and there's no good way to get him out of this.

[krems-chair]

I'm curious, and would love to hear people's thoughts on this.

Did anyone play a human? And did the people playing humans feel overall more satisfied with the game?

Amongst people critical of Veilguard, I guess I'm trying to pinpoint how much of the frustration ties in to what race choice you make.

I know for a fact based on posts I've seen that veteran fans who played as elves had a lot of valid critiques about the lack of a dalish/city elf split as well as a seeming lack of ability to confront Solas in any meaningful way about the multitude of actions he took that severely messed up many lives (God, he is a direct cause via his creation of the lyrium dagger in severing the titans from their dreams, therefore extinguishing an entire people).

But at least there are SOME dialogue choices for elves. The dwarves themselves get less of a chance to address the crimes committed against them than the elves do. And even Harding, whose story is rooted in anger over what happened, always ends up talking to Rook about believing in second chances even if you tell her to focus on her anger. I made a post earlier in my return to tumblr saying that Solas haters deserved better, especially after it was promised that this game would be for everyone and cover the ways in which an Inquisitor's relationship with him could be (generalizing here) good or bad.

Not only did the endings not deliver on that promise, arguably the group that has the biggest reason to at the very least chew him out and get out some of that justified anger at the titans having their dreams stolen and at the very most take him out for it if that fits with their ideal story is denied the chance.

And what about that cool as hell dwarven map we never return to?? I can't be the only one excited to go back who saved the exploration for later only to realize that was it.

And of course, the poor Qunari players, who probably thought "at last! A chance to explore and refine the lore we've gotten so far that absolutely needs to be fixe...oh. look. Face-covering seldom-speaking spawnable villains. Again. Great, a binary choice for Taash in which the Qun option is clearly shaded as more harmful to them than the alternative. Groundbreaking."

I haven't played as a human yet, and I know that race choice aside there's an abundance of issues to work through, but I'm so curious about how people who played a human felt/if it was easier to ignore some of what we lost or didn't get and enjoy the things that were done less poorly.

I'm fueled entirely by curiosity at this point and it's overriding my exhaustion as I prepare to go to sleep long enough to post this, so hopefully I don't look back tomorrow morning and go "wtf was I saying."

TLDR: full deep dives into the critiques of each of the three non-human Rooks are very worth doing and I've seen some great ones, but in a more general sense I'm curious how the human Rooks felt navigating the game.

(This is also, just in case it comes across that way, me trying to yuck anyone's yum. If you liked the game, I am happy for you! But if you didn't like it, I'm interested in discussing why not :) )