#he said FUCk the chantry

[twink-with-an-agenda]

Playing at peace while blood flows behind closed doors is the pleasant face of evil

Aka Cillian Hawke calling out chantry hypocrisy since 9:37 Dragon

[mourn-and-watch]

rotating the thought of the chantry explosion backfiring on everyone who was affiliated with anders like kinloch hold or fereldan grey wardens. no way the chantry or its most initiative individuals wouldn't put the blame on anyone who was even slightly associated with the cause of the most defiant insult that had ever been inflicted on it. oh they would never leave one of the most lenient circles and the neutral™ organisation that accepts mages in their ranks alone after that

[ronaan]

eamon, looking at my warden, who stabbed vaughan in his cell, refused to stay silent about loghain's crimes, and kept quiet about jowan's involvement in the poisoning: we are not winning this fucking landsmeet, are we

[breadedsinner]

"Slightly-fraying patience," is the phrase I am adapting to describe Sebastian's general demeanor when dealing with the rest of the Kirkwall crew (especially Varric) when they ask inappropriate/invasive questions.

[notebooks-and-laptops]

Actually I think that we should pay more attention to what the "hand over the apostates" banter means for Sebastians character, not just Fenris's.

Because. Yes. It shows Fenris is unwilling to hand over Hawke but more importantly Anders/Merrill who he has an antagonist relationship with.

But also...hey, Seb? You could just do that. Alone. You do not need Fenris and Aveline. Your favourite person in the city is the grand Cleric and if you even slightly hinted at it to her I bet they'd be in chains in the gallows before anyone could blink. Technically, you could argue that maybe there's some rule about the chantry needing/wanting more than one person to inform them of apostates but do we really think that the KIRKWALL templars follow that rule? No fucking way.

So...why does Sebastian go to Fenris and Aveline? We as the audience enjoy the fact that Fenris says no as highlighting something about his character, but Seb has been to Fenris's gambling nights where Anders is a key player. He's watched Fenris and Aveline drink with these people. I don't...think he expects a yes.

He's also...not friendly with Anders. But he and Merrill have genuinely theological debates that I reckon Seb actually sorta enjoys.

He's doing a very Sebastian thing here that digs into the core of his character. He is paroting chantry retoric and pretending it's The Most Important Thing when really his heart isn't in it. He's pretending to be the good little chantry boy, but what he really likes is running around fighting thugs and taking on the evils of the city with these mages. If anyone (from the chantry) asks he can say "I wanted to hand them in, I tried, but they wouldn't let me".

It's SUCH a Seb thing. He doesn't hand them in either! He just thinks he should because the chantry said so. He doesn't want to. He just wants to want to. Just like he wants to want to be a chantry brother with no power or wealth. Just like he wants to want to be merciful when he is really just full of venegnce.

Sebastian never manages to distangle his faith from the chantry. He doesn't even really work out what he likes and what he doesn't, like Cass, Viv or Leliana do. He just. Thinks he should like it all without any higher thought. Which means that he reacts like this when the chantry seem to be telling him one thing and he wants something else.

Sebastian and his cognitive dissonance about what he wants and what he wants to want and the hoops he will jump through to appear "good" while still basically getting what he wants is so fascinating to me. I wish it had been explored more and Seb had managed to work it out for himself and explore what parts of his faith were important to him and what parts were just something he felt cohersed into doing.

tl;dr, Sebastian didn't want to hand in Anders or Merrill either, which is why he asked instead of doing it. He just wanted to say he had tried to appease the invisible ghost of chantry propaganda sitting on his shoulder.

[legoprime]

I've seen some sadness about the fact that anyone who plays The Veilguard first, or even just sees the promotional material before playing the first three games, isn't going to experience the surprise Solas reveal in Inquisition. I totally understand that, but also wanted to share my perspective and experience as an Anders Fan who played Inquisition first.

I got into DAI shortly after it came out; I had a mutual who was super into DA who got me interested, and when I asked if it was okay to just play that one they assured me it was fine. First playthrough had me hooked, and I played through a couple more times before I started wanting to customize a worldstate.

I'm not actually a huge gamer so I got on the DA wiki and started reading about DAO and DA2 to see if I wanted to play them, or if I just wanted to make up some stuff in the Keep. When I found out Anders was a companion AND a love interest in DA2 I lost my fucking mind.

See, I already knew what he did. I'd listened to all those banters and conversations about what happened in Kirkwall, but with zero context of the first two games I hadn't really put it together that he was, like, an actual befriendable character for Hawke in DA2.

This changed everything: I HAD to play the first two games because I HAD to romance that mage. Literally all I knew about him was that he blew up a Chantry (true), betrayed Hawke (false), and was responsible for the Mage-Templar War (also false). I love a villain and a heartbreak though and by god I wanted to break my Hawke's heart.

I made myself play DAO first to establish a Warden, then dove into DA2 with wild abandon. Folks, I already had a Hawke/Anders playlist at this point and I hadn't even met him properly yet. When I finally did meet him and he fucking started flirting with me two conversations in I was lost forever.

I could write several paragraphs detailing how playing DA2 and friendmancing Anders completely changed my perspective on his character and how he was portrayed in DAI, but I'll just summarize it and say it was not the villain heartbreak arc I anticipated. When the end credits rolled I was wrecked emotionally, but I never, ever once felt betrayed by him, and he lives on with my Hawke who will love him forever.

Obviously your mileage may vary (I say about one of the most controversial characters in DA history) but whether or not you like Anders isn't actually the point of this post: the point is if I hadn't learned about him in DAI, I don't know if I would've been inspired to play DAO and DA2. As I said, I'm not a huge gamer; it was the story and the character that inspired me to play, and now I've played all three games many times and am thoroughly invested in the series.

So while it is sad that brand new DA players probably aren't going to be surprised by the Solas reveal in DAI, there are absolutely going to be people who jump in at The Veilguard, find out this guy was romanceable in a previous game, and utterly lose their shit over that. And I think that's beautiful.

[essektheylyss]

Alright, deeply circumstantial conspiracy theory time.

Remember how we never fucking figured out Vence Nuthaleus's deal? Ludinus's annex, who supposedly was working outside of Ludinus's knowledge or orders?

The Nein found two Abyssal Anchors in Xhorhas while chasing the Angel of Irons cultists, ostensibly to cause chaos and distraction during the war. These anchors were created by Vence based on tech used by demon generals during the Calamity to invade the Material Realm with more ease, and Vence created crude approximations of them, that Obann then deployed in Asarius and Braan.

(If only Caleb hadn't incinerated that goblin in Braan. We could've cracked this case wide open years ago.)

under a cut, as this is long—and does contain spoilers for c2:

The last anchor the Nein come across directly is in the Chantry of the Dawn; Jester scries on Vence delivering it to Cardinal Respa, along with two scrolls that are supposedly from the vaults of Vasselheim that provide guidance for establishing a ritual in the Chantry, upon a fane that was one of six holding Tharizdun at bay. Respa notices the scrying, and ends it, and the Nein immediately head to the Cathedral, though Vence has already left, and the anchor is set up as a distraction, while the main ritual happens elsewhere.

This is primarily notable because the timeline is fairly compressed. Jester scries on Vence while they're already in Rexxentrum; they go to the Chantry and fight assorted cultists under Respa's watch, the demons coming out of the portal, Obann's crew of cultists, and then Obann the Punished. They exit the basement fairly quickly and talk to several officials who have arrived at the Chantry, and then are immediately marched to Dwendal's throne room for an audience.

This is the conversation in which Ludinus admits that Vence had "recently" asked for an Amulet of Nondetection, and he granted the request. Given that Vence hadn't been attuned to it prior to going to the Chantry, he evidently takes the time to attune to it within the two hours (accounting for travel times around Rexxentrum) between those periods.

Here's where we start to get circumstantial: if Vence had obtained the amulet before, why hadn't he attuned to it immediately? It's possible he hadn't even gotten the amulet until then, at which point there was already a Kryn attack underway, as well as a significant disturbance at the Chantry of the Dawn. This seems an odd time to request such an item, as well as a rather foolish move on Ludinus's part to grant the request with little information.

With that in mind, let's go back for a moment to the Abyssal Anchors.

They're said to be crudely-reconstructed versions of Calamity-era technology. They create a planar rift between realms. They were not designed to assist in the ritual to summon Tharizdun, and instead seem only to have been a distraction—though a rather odd one, as they created minor nuisances that were, in both cases, dealt with by the Nein, and never on the direct orders of the Dynasty's leadership. The war itself seems as though it would've been distraction enough.

We also hear that there have been similar anchors discovered across the Empire, collected, and destroyed—words that come only from Ludinus's mouth.

The Nein had considered that perhaps Ludinus knew what Vence had been up to, but they had no tangible evidence of that, and he of course denied it. I recall considering the possibility at the time that he had even been involved, and mostly discarding it because he seemed to have no motivation to do so.

But now we know that something notable happened about six years ago, in the timeframe of the Material Plane: according to the Calloways, Ruidus became visible in the sky in the Feywild, and presumably with it, the Shadowfell.

We know that at the time, Ludinus was using the findings from his stolen beacons to create the dunamantic liquid that was used to make an assassination attempt on Keyleth. We also know that at some point, an annex of Ludinus obtained scrolls from the vaults of Vasselheim that gave instruction on creating a ritual to "release the fane" beneath the Chantry. (Fanes are, generally, places of power—which is similar to the list of locations across the Feywild that Ludinus looked into in order to absorb power from, per the notes that Team Wildemount discovered in Gildhollow Tower.) Incidentally, we also know that Ludinus oversaw, in 835 PD, the excavation of crash site A2 in Eiselcross, which held both the corrupted forest akin to the Savalirwood, and a threshold crest just beyond that. All of this happened roughly around or just before Ruidus was tethered to the Feywild.

Though we may never know for sure that these things are related, my theory is that these crude iterations of the Abyssal Anchors were the test run for whatever arcane device that Ludinus used to tether the moon in the echo planes, finally allowing him the ability to put his long-considered plan into motion.

[felondese]

here are my guesses for how they're doing this:

morrigan has been taken over by mythal to the point where her personal development and history pre-mythal don't matter all that much, so no references to her potential child or partner. we're going to see mythal in morrigan shape which I'm okay with for elgar'nan-whooping-purposes

we're just going to pretend that well of sorrows thing didn't happen shhh. i think they'd rather just sweep that one under the rug considering there wasn't even real solas reaction dialogue with him in your party (he mildly disagrees with you drinking but he also doesn't want morrigan to), just his seemingly random ass outrage back at skyhold after the fact. they really fumbled this one already, i think, so probably for the best to just ignore it, even if that's a shame because it's so chewy. plus the well is essentially morrigan's now anyway whether she drank or not

the inquisition is a handful of people at this point regardless of disbandment or not, and we won't really hear from anyone we know that's still working with them. they can't really reference any of the advisors or companions other than varric and harding. as little as our previous choices matter, i have a hard time imagining a significant difference in game states based on, for example, having forces and resources to contribute

the inquisitor is going to make an appearance but get kidnapped/hurt/go MIA for most of the game early on so their presence in the story is the only thing that's significant, not any personal details, anything that might showcase personality or reference their choices in inquisition. probably gonna die to tie up loose ends

solas will be a lil extra sad if lavellan romanced him but I'm not expecting much in terms of solavellan nods. i am betting the difference will be minimal, like friendly vs romanced in trespasser. best case scenario a kiss and he'll throw in a vhenan at the end maybe when he breaks her heart again. definitely not banking on murals or anything significant.

that said, i am thinking the only one of the three choices that will actually have much of an impact is if you romanced solas. i highly doubt any of the other dai romances will get mentioned since past char choices related to them aren't and there are too many variables

whether your inky wanted to redeem or stop solas won't really matter. we need his help either way and with the gods released the veil is probably coming down whether he does it or not

the rest of the world is on fucking fire early enough in the game that it doesn't matter who's on what thrones. it's all irrelevant when the evanuris bust out. no chantry, no kingdoms left standing, just chaos and death

the chars i was really looking forward to seeing again and kind of expected based on location/factions (dorian, isabela, zevran, sten, fenris) might get a passing reference in text but i hear it's a real pain in the ass to get the voice actors and art departments involved for cameos, plus all the possible contingencies, so I'm dropping those hopes. should count my blessings that they aren't horrifically killed on screen because that would be the only other option i guess

basically i'm going to bring my expectations back down to earth and then a little lower for safety. can't be disappointed if i don't expect much going in.

still looking forward to the game? absolutely.

[dendroaspis-viridis]

On the "Emmrich is undead/a spirit" theory

I’ve been having a lot of Thoughts™ about a certain professor and the interesting "I would say, 'not that skeleton,' but we're not saying, 'no skeletons.'" quote from Matt Rhodes during the Q&A.

I personally think the skeleton in question is Emmrich, though I think he’s still flesh and blood most of the time. I'll elaborate under the cut.

I’d like to first establish that I don’t think he’s a spirit like Audric. In Down Among the Dead Men, we learn that most spirits work under the guidance of a Mourn Watcher, specifically “under a modicum of magical control”, and I can’t imagine the Mortalitasi would send a lone spirit out from the Necropolis without an accompanying Watcher regardless of the spirit’s ‘wholeness’. Especially considering the apprehension people outside Nevarra seem to show the Mortalitasi.

There was also that quote from the IGN interview with Corinne Busche that paraphrased “no bear sex”, and I feel like a full on Beverly Crusher-esque ghost fucking would at least be bear sex adjacent. Not to mention, hinting at one of your companions being undead seems like a massive spoiler to drop before the game's even out.

Back to how I think Emmrich is the skeleton (but also not): the Mortalitasi have a lot of connections to the Veil/Fade due to their constant interactions with souls and spirits (and my personal headcanon that the Grand Necropolis as a whole exists in an odd liminal space between the material world and the Fade, but that’s a whole other can of worms). The concept art we’ve been shown thus far features a Mortalitasi harvesting material from a mummified dragon surrounded by their skeletal assistants:

And if we zoom in on the (presumably) human figure, we can see a bit more detail:

They look distinctly flesh and blood when compared to their skeletal assistants, wearing a protective smock and gloves that go up to the bicep, complete with (what looks like) chain covering their torso and upper arms.

The headpiece they’re wearing had me puzzled for a few days, to be honest. But from what I can tell, I don’t believe there’s enough space in there for the skull we see to merely be a decorative mask (especially considering the deep craters of the eye sockets and nose), leading me to believe the headgear shows the Mortalitasi’s actual skulls while they’re wearing them. There’s also a tiny gap between the mandible of the skull and bevor of the helmet, implying the skull is a separate item.

As for why (I think) we see the Mortalitasi’s actual skull, I can only hypothesize the headgear assist them in accessing the Fade while conscious more easily? Whether that allows them greater control over their summons, lets them more easily communicate with Fade spirits, or allows them to peer through the Veil to see some of the more metaphysical things they’re harvesting, I have no idea. Though it’d also fit in perfectly with the melodramatic Memento Mori vibes I get from Nevarran culture as a whole.

There’s also a dagger (“Walking Death”) from DA:I with an interesting description: “The well-worn hilt bears the marks of the Nevarran Mortalitasi. The order makes an art of mummification, and their tools are imbued with magicks that blur the moment between life and death, though death is no less certain.”

Both the Chantry and Nevarra seem to agree that death occurs in the moment a soul/spirit leaves someone’s body and passes through the Veil, so the implication that most of the Mortalitasi’s tools can manipulate the Veil supports the idea that they’d have to create some kind of headgear that would allow them to see what exactly they’re manipulating?

So with all of that said, I’m assuming there’s going to be a scene with Emmrich at some point if you pursue a romance with him where he’s discussing the Mourn Watch/something death-related, where he dons the headpiece to further emphasize both his and Rook’s mortality, and there will be an option to kiss him. Or something like that. Idk.

Also I wanna specify that all this is based entirely on concept art screenshots and my inability to stop thinking about Dragon Age, but I’m gonna continue to assume Emmrich is entirely alive unless shown otherwise.

No judgement to people who're pumped for a potential skeleton romance, by the way! These are just my thoughts on who exactly that smoochable skeleton is, though I will admit I’m hoping for a flesh and blood Emmrich.

[vigilskeep]

sorry if this is an insane question, it's something i've been wondering about and you are the dragon age lore understander in my mind: ...is there canonical information about divorces (or annulments) in thedas? like, in dao you can find out that eamon suggested cailan 'put anora aside' but that's very vague about logistics. it's probably just something bioware doesn't care about but it haunts me. if cailan had tried to divorce anora and marry celene to create an orlais-fereldan alliance and the divine hadn't approved could thedas have had its own anglican church situation

[the below answer should be read with the visual of me with a white-knuckled grip of frustration leaving indents on steel]

there is NO lore and it drives me INSANE !!!

david gaider, on a random forum discussion post, said “there is annulment. there is no concept of ‘divorce’”. this along with the discussion of cailan setting anora aside is as far as i know all we have

so ‘annulment but no divorce’ is presumably drawing from andrastianism’s catholic inspirations. which basically means that divorce isn’t a thing but a marriage can be declared “null” if you can come up with a reason it was never valid from the start. to go for the henry viii example, he tried to have his marriage to catherine of aragon annulled on the grounds that she had married his late brother first, and he’d suddenly and conveniently realised this meant their marriage had never been okay. the pope refused, because a) a pope had already given henry and catherine permission to marry despite those circumstances meaning the marriage was literally fine and popes aren’t supposed to take that kind of thing back and b) also as an aside, for separate reasons the pope had had his city sacked and been taken prisoner by catherine’s nephew the holy roman emperor like five minutes ago, and so had reasonable fears for his health if he said yes

(sorry if any of the above historical info is slightly off it’s been a while but that’s pretty much the gist)

i have... absolutely no idea on what grounds you could annul cailan’s marriage to anora. but we really have no data on what the chantry considers grounds. could her supposed infertility be enough? it’s impossible to say. maybe eamon was working on some argument, it’s clear he’s been pushing for this for years

that said, if cailan himself was moving to marry celene, he’d have a much better shot at getting that annulment, if only because what’s the divine going to do, not grant an annulment to the guy the orlesian empress wants to marry? this is where anora not having any useful emperor nephews really lets her down. her father could certainly raise hell in ferelden, but they have zero reach in orlais

(as an aside, all this is something i’ve thought about for one of my absolute favourite dragon age timelines, sebhawke divorce. tell me inquisition wouldn’t be improved by starkhaven desperately trying to get an annulment meanwhile the divine is fucking exploded. you can’t.)

[v-arbellanaris]

PLEASE share about the Cullen Cult Arc

sighs. this is my second time writing this post ;~; literally why does the autosave option exist if tumblr doesnt actually bother to autosave anything, i dont fucking get it.

this is going to be much briefer than the original post i wrote because im still REELING over how tumblr just ate the entire fucking post. its fucking gone. and idk if i have the energy or mental capacity rn to rewrite the whole thing. basically, this arc - which is the arc i developed for him in vee verse - is the arc i think cullen should've had in dai.

firstly, i'm not retconning anything he said or did in dao or da2. this is because those things serve a narrative purpose. cullen is a good templar - that's the entire crux of the problem. he exists in these two games as a narrative tool; he represents the views of the chantry. as such, anything you do with his character arc cannot be divorced from the reality of the mage/templar conflicts, and the glaring issues of the chantry and must, actually, address and involve those things, because cullen is a product of his surroundings. i'm not saying this to minimise or give him excuses for anything he's said or done, but that is made true for him by his very positioning in the narrative as being the chantry's voice. for most of my playthroughs, which lean pro-mage, cullen is an antagonistic force - he has to say and do horrific things, and it would be stupid for me to retcon the horrible things he did.

secondly, my main issue comes from his writing in dai - probably to no one's surprise. i am not unopposed to having a redemption arc for him in dai - this is villain-fucking the blog, sorry not sorry - but the problem is that he does not have one. to have a redemption arc, the following two things needs to happen:

the realisation/acknowledgement/knowledge/whatever that he caused harm to people with his actions/inactions

addressing the False Belief that he has embraced that has previously justified his harmful actions/inactions in order to accept the Truth (this is just basic character narrative construction).

and dai fails to do both of these because the writing team in inquisition is physically incapable of admitting the chantry is wrong and has done wrong and will continue to do wrong. they are physically incapable of looking at fucked up power dynamics and clear cases of oppression and not going "but what if the oppressed people. wanted to be oppressed. NEEDED to be oppressed, even."

which leaves his character arc - whether you want to consider it redemptive or not - confusing. he's trying to shake a lyrium addiction? sure, okay. but why is he addicted to lyrium? why is being addicted to regular ol' lyrium bad? it's not blue lyrium that killed meredith, it's not blue lyrium that corypheus and samson are using.

you get confusing things like cullen's entire character arc being centered around lyrium addiction... but no one seems to give a shit if the inquisitor takes lyrium and becomes a templar, except cullen. you get confusing things like cullen's entire character arc being centered around recovering from lyrium addiction and the templar route in dai and you get to the scene where all the templars get their lyrium draughts. the ceremony and chanting and celebration around getting the lyrium, when barris takes his draught, which is frankly revolting. but it highlights the inconsistency - lyrium, this scene tells us, is good. because the templars are good, and they use it for good. yet cullen's entire arc is about overcoming his lyrium addiction, but don't worry!!!! templars are still good and lyrium is still good. its fucking INCOHERENT!!!!!!

he is addicted to lyrium because that is how the chantry maintains absolute control over its templars. it is a mind-altering substance that causes paranoia, which the chantry specifically takes advantage of and feeds with their all mages are inherently dangerous rhetoric, which is a false rhetoric, as i've pointed out before. but instead of acknowledging any of that, dai's writing goes "lyrium is Bad because [mumble mumble] and its So Important that he doesn't take it so that [mumble mumble]".

because the story is physically incapable of uttering anything even vaguely critical of the chantry.

so, this covers my main issue with his writing in dai. i would ideally try to fix it - without retconning anything he did in dao or in da2. this is what the cullen cult recovery arc is referring to.

i'm not going to go into it in too much detail but the templar order - inclusive of the seekers - fits a lot of the parameters of a cult. specifically, the BITE model, but also this checklist, and a whole bunch of other parameters i found when researching into cults for this specific reason. (which. makes sense. seeing how the orlesian chantry is was also technically a religious cult that becomes the main religion of the lands by actively slaughtering all the other sects)

but what's particularly interesting about it specifically is that, in-world, no one else seems to think it's a cult. for all of cullen's views, he is not the extreme end in da2 - alrik is. meredith is. what's particularly disturbing to me about cullen's point of view is that because he's a product of his environment, because he's a narrative tool representing the chantry's views, cullen's opinions and actions are actually a normality test. people in thedas don't find cullen's views repulsive because most average joes in thedas agree with him. i think it's easy to forget cullen isn't the outlier in-universe - we are.

but, canonically speaking, this is what happens: cullen, like most good antagonists getting a redemption set up, misses his chance to Embrace Change at the end of da2. he sides with meredith too late for it to matter or make a difference - mages (who you learn on the templar route, he's not exactly eager to kill) who he's supposed to protect are already dead. but what happens in kirkwall shakes him to his core and he looks to leave the order entirely - a good step.

the problem is that he leaves the order to join the inquisition. the inquisition, which is headed by the left and right hands of the divine. the right hand of the divine is a seeker herself. the inquisition is spearheaded and justified by the divine, who he has been trained for most his adult life to be subservient to. the divine who formed the inquisition to replace the templar order and hired him to essentially train and recreate the order.

worse, still. no one thinks he did anything wrong. kinloch was not his fault, it was the fault of greagoir and the older templars who were simply not vigilant enough, meredith told him. how he acted to keep order in the circle and the city after the viscount was executed is admirable, cassandra tells him. he was only following orders, leliana admits grudgingly, he stood up for what was right when meredith went too far. no one thinks he did anything wrong, because he is a good templar. because all the atrocities he committed were not committed against people - they were committed against mages, who are not people, not like you and me.

cullen hops from one cult to the next. the inquisition is the exact same thing he's always done and known, just repackaged - quite literally, considering the inquisition's symbol. but canonically, he thinks it's something different. he wants it to be different.

it's not, though.

so, the thought process behind my thoughts for him boils down to this: how does he get the language to describe exactly why this is wrong? how does he get the language to describe why it matters, why it's important, that he hurt real people? how does he get past the Lie that he believes - that he has to be a good templar, to stop anything like kinloch from happening again, since kinloch happened because they weren't vigilant enough, because they were too sympathetic to mages?

his arc shouldn't have just been about overcoming lyrium addiction. his arc should have been a story about recovering from being part of a hate group, a story about recovering from part of a cult.

there's several ways to go about it, i think. and if you want to specifically know how i'm going to do it, you guys should encourage me to write vee verse 😌

[a-boros-named-seamus]

A Small Rant Based On Niche Dragon Age Community Drama That Tumblr's Recommendation Algorithm Put On My Dash

Just. As a preface. The "Is Alistair Biracial/Dark Skinned By IRL Standards" discourse bugs me because it tends to (or tended to back in the day) distract from SO MANY other problems with how Dragon Age handles problems of race and racism (Its tendency to whitewash characters like Isabela and Dorian who are very very much dark skinned and non-white, the ISSUES with the orientalist mess that is the Qunari, trying to Both Sides the Dalish repeatedly being genocided by the Chantry, how it handles issues of oppression and resistance in general, etc). Because there are better, more worthwhile discussions to be had.

Also I TRULY don't care that much, i just tend to rant A Lot, and needed to post this somewhere, so if you're really invested in biracial Alistair please scroll on, I'm not saying it's a bad interpretation, just... venting/ranting about extremely minor differences in interpretation of the text

That Being Said...

... Why does everyone think that Alistair isn't white. Like. We've SEEN characters with dark skin in Origins' engine (And it's not usually subtle about it). And, unless youre seeing him in darkness (At camp, for example), there is no denying that that is a White Guy That Tans Well.

Every argument I see on it just... baffles me. Like. Especially when they get into the ones that are like "Well, if you take the raw model in the viewer and-" (This one especially annoys me because THAT"S NOT HOW ANIMATION WORKS. Lighting and filters and all that are integral parts of the finished product too) because. Like. Look at this man

That is a white man with a decent tan.

My skin is about that color (Darker when I've been working outside consistently) and my ancestry can best be described as "Heinz 57 varieties of white with dominant notes of Black Irish and Scottish/Northern English"

I'm not touching the "Is Fiona Dark Skinned In The Book Or Not" discourse with a ten foot pole either, except to say that most Circle apprentices are adolescents/children for most of it, and can y'all think of a reason that a teen girl miiiight be jealous of an adult woman's flawless, porcelain like skin? (Hint: It's acne)

Also. No, he's not whitewashed in Dragon Age 2. He's just losing his tan because no matter if he's king or warden commander, he's spending most of his time indoors doing "Person high up the command structure" things instead of cross country hiking.

Dragon Age Inquisition on the other hand... How the FUCK did Bioware manage to whitewash a white man.

[yarpharp]

Random stupid thought: if you accidentally tossed Astarion (Baldur's Gate 3) into Thedas (Dragon Age), it'd be a mess. An actual fucking delightful mess.

Elves are lower-class citizens or slaves? Yeah, Astarion is going to slaughter them (fuckhead humans) all just for the insult (and because he has far too much trauma about being a slave himself). He's also a fop and cannot stand having no little luxuries after years upon years of utter shit; fuck Orlais for trying to deny him nice clothes.

Blood Magic is bad? Welp... He's a vampire. A vampire needs blood. And he's a high elf that has a natural magic cantrip (or if you spec him into Arcane Trickster, more spells than that). Fuck that shit, time for more slaughter but Specifically Chantry Officials. The sheer blasphemy of drinking the blood of asshole priestesses would delight him to no end.

Also he'd probably eat Solas because said mage would run his stupid mouth and piss him off. Apocalypse via Tearing Down The Veil averted!

[psalacanthea]

A Sky of Shattered Stars- 10

oh, hey, look what I did. It's a longfic update. The Hawke x Varric post-canon, post Hawke escapes the fade. It's a juicy one and full of surprises and feelings and angst, and you should read it here!

...

By the time Hawke finished blackening her armor, there was no choice but to put it on and slip out into the night, fleeing from what had happened. 

Hightown was quiet, sharp in silver and shadow.

The new chantry loomed, a monument to hypocrisy.  She glared at its distant silhouette against the clear sky.  Maybe she'd make Varric open a park with a statue of Anders in it.  Right in front of the fucking chantry.

Not because she thought Anders wanted or needed a statue; it'd just piss them off.

She was knee-deep in revenge fantasies when a scream drew her attention.  Around a corner and down a narrow alley between two estates, a figure was fending off three much larger people.  It quickly became apparent it was a very young woman, maybe in her late teens, being accosted by thieves.  Well, that was an easy choice.

Indulging in bloodlust, Hawke attacked.

They were child's play, shadow-wreathed blades slashing through clumsy attack and defense both.  She spared a thought for the law, but Hawke had no faith in Aveline after what they'd been through before.  These thugs were prey.  They were slow, vulnerable, and Hawke was running from her problems. 

That made her powerful.

Within two minutes she had them down, minimizing blood spray for the sake of the hovering girl, who didn't seem to have the sense to run away.  Once all three were bleeding out on the ground, Hawke crouched down to empty their pouches.  Yes, she was rich.  It was the principle of the thing.  She didn't believe in wasting money, no matter how small an amount.

Which was why Varric called her things like 'cheap' and 'cutthroat'.  Rude.  Like he was any better; his scams were just bigger.

"Serah...you saved me."

Hawke finally turned her attention to the girl, rising to her feet with a flare of her coat.

The girl’s face, sharp in the moonlight, was so strangely familiar that Hawke felt deja-vu.  It took a moment, until abruptly the memory of a gangly little girl tagging along the heels of her elder sister Babette sparked Hawke’s mind.  Cosette de Launcet.  Oh, great.

“Messere, the streets at night are no place for such a delicate lady,” Hawke said, taking pains to keep her voice low and disguised.

“You saved me,” the girl breathed, glancing up, wide-eyed.  "Thank you so much!"

Wait, wasn't Varric having issues with de Launcet with all of the statue nonsense?  Hmm.  Bringing Varric presents home from her nighttime escapades was an old tradition, and this seemed like a wonderful and wicked opportunity.  The girl would be useful.  Sure, Hawke could play hero for her.

Hawke smiled behind her mask, inclining her head.  "I insist upon taking you safely home.  Please."  With a flourish, she extended her arm.

Little Cosette de Launcet gratefully took her arm, and unwittingly led Hawke back to her secret escape route from her family's manor.  She would stay out of trouble for one more night.  Though, considering how skilled she was at slipping in and out of an imposing stone-hewn Kirkwall mansion, she'd been at it for some time. 

Kids would be kids.

[vultures-and-scavengers]

its not even that i like cullen (im lesbian af), and like im meh about his in-game portrayal and im REALLY not a fan of his "but you're one of the good ones" mage romance but like.

he's my blorbo and its entirely unwillingly. he just could have been so much more interesting.

he's the one ferelden in the room. the one commoner. the one person who has actually seen the horrors of both the templar order (they take in infants and children who will be given lyrium and leashed to the order, thats so fucked up) and the circles (magic is, actually, fucked up and they dont do a good job showing it)

and he has nothing to say about mr "im gonna retake ferelden" gaspard? like dude you grew up in a poor farming village and your parents almost certainly knew people who fought or were killed in the fight to kick orlais out.

his dislike for the nobility only comes up as a joke played for laughs, but like. he's a commoner. yes he joined the templars at 13, but you're telling me all those political intrigues and games the nobility play never affected his life? they laugh in their gilded halls and his family struggles to put food on the table and he has nothing to say about us sucking highborn dick the entire game?

the irl military has systemic issues with assault, and hell, you could have said something about that via the templar order, pointing out how higher ranks can easily abuse the lower ranks, especially with access to lyrium. you could have had something interesting to say about the chantry holding the templars as these holy warriors and then you get in and they call the leash that means you can never leave a gift because its going to steal your memories, which will be filled with blood and horror?

mages versus templars, the rot within the chantry, ferelden versus orlais, classism, imperialism, ptsd, addiction, etc. he could have touched on all these subjects but instead we get... vague references to da2 and kinloch and two scenes about him trying to break free of addiction that imo dont handle it... the best?

like, im a firm believer in the idea that all characters have stories to tell and things to say, and when characters are written with these things in mind, it can make them much more interesting. not that they should be used to preach-- its better to have a wide variety who have different things to say but you can see why they would say those things and have interesting discussions about it.

and he. exists. i admit the coin cutscene is very cute and im begrudgingly fond of the way he keeps the house castle secure while the inquisitor goes off and fights and he never pulls any 'im going to do stupid thing because you're going into danger and i dont want you to'. i like that he never tries to control the inquisitor and im absolutely tickled by him still saluting a romanced inquisitor in the post-perseverance cutscene. what a dork.

tl;dr, i guess, he's my blorbo and im mad about it because i only sort of like him but he could have been so much better. i also think he should have been a rivalmance.

[opheliaorophile]

Hallelujah

(There are no Veilguard spoilers in this content, it was all created in early September, I’m only posting it now).

So I found this old Bioware article from 2014…

Its about what the writers listened to when they wrote their characters.

I was immediately struck by Weekes’ (writer of Bull, Cole, & Solas) comment that he wrote whole swaths of Solas dialogue listening to K.D. Langs cover of Hallelujah.

Because when I was playing Origins, way back in 2009, as soon as I heard the words “The Chant of Andraste” I thought of Hallelujah.

No better parallel could exist for me. Hallelujah, if you listen to the lyrics, is not really church related, yet it got absorbed into the church as a hymn. Its fucking sad, and yet we’re praising god or some shit?

Kinda like how I feel The Chantry has changed their religion, their original purpose, Andraste and the Maker and all that, into something horrible (subjugation/lobotomization of mages, feeding templars crack, you know, nOrMal StUfF).

I love the parallels there. And I love that Weekes used this sad-ass fucking dirge for our sad-ass fucking egg, especially considering what KD Lang said about it:

Canadian singer k.d. lang said in an interview shortly after Cohen's death that she considered the song to be about "the struggle between having human desire and searching for spiritual wisdom. It's being caught between those two places."       (Be still, my heart.)

And I thought about how Legends Shouldn’t Be Given The Weight of History, and how The Chantry’s purpose has been twisted, and how Hallelujah’s purpose has been twisted, and at the time, I was completing The Temple of the Emerald Knights in DA:I. I was thinking about how the Elvhen temple is littered with statues of Andraste and Mythal (dragon), how there’s a Knight, Andale (which is so obviously Andraste, prob Flemythal reincarnate of some sort).

The blending and melding and mushing of cultures and religions as time drags on, how originally good or pure purposes are changed or shifted, or corrupted.

And I thought of Andraste again.

I have been unhealthily obsessed with this artist named Aly, who is a Bard in Thedas and sings at The Dread Halla Tavern (you can find them on spotify here);  

(for clarification, this human is not me, I am not a singer, she is very good, you should go listen to all her songs-after you read this).

Anyways, I got to thinking…

What would Andraste’s Hallelujah sound like?

I had to write it.

Its sad and beautiful and tells the story of a woman flighting against forces she has no hope of defeating (But we still have to try).

[Andraste’s Lament]

And I got immediately transported to a smoky, dimly lit tavern in Southern Thedas. Aly has just sung Andraste’s Lament, and is approached by Neria, a lone Dalish Elf who clutches a scrap of paper tightly in her hand.

Aly listens to this elf tell her a story of a sad song her mother used to sing her when she was young, before she got killed by bandits. And could she sing this song for her, please, she even has a few coppers.

And Aly sits down, scans the paper, and realizes it’s a different version of Andraste’s Hallelujah.

Written in small looping script at the top, in Common, is Dirge of the Dread Wolf.

And she sings it softly to Neria, a strange story of mothers and gods and tricksters and wolves, and Neria’s eyes well.

[Dirge of the Dread Wolf]

She ends the song, the last beautiful Hallelujah trembling through the thickness of the tavern air.

Neria sniffs once, and then begins a new story. Aly listens to this Elf speak of a crumbling Dalish temple deep in the middle of nowhere, where she found a piece of paper beside a four legged statue that has since eroded to expressionless guardianship, of words crossed out and changed and smudged.

Then she shakily hands Aly a different piece of paper.

This velumm is significantly older than the first, thicker, almost crumbling around the edges.

And its Hallelujah again, but its spelled wrong, and some strange name with too many n’s in it is written at the top.

And Neria asks Aly if she can sing this.

But it’s written in Elvhen, and Aly shakes her head, she doesn’t think she can stumble through all the strange Dalish a’s and ash’s and am’s (there's so many damn vowels in Dalish…).

But, Aly halts the elfs falling face, she is more than willing to sing this in Common, if Neria will stay to act as translator.

So the two bend their heads close over the bar, and Aly pulls out her small precious notebook where she writes down the lyrics to her own tunes, and they quickly make work of the Elvhen words, Aly humming and hawing as she changes some words to better match the pattern of the song.

And soon they have a brand-new Hallelujah, and Aly asks Neria to pronounce the name at the top.

Ghil-an’nain, Neria says, and make sure you spell the hallelujah right.

H, a, l, l, a, l, i, e, u, y, a.

What does that mean in Dalish? Aly asks the elf.

And Neria shrugs. Halla is like a halla, she assumes. But this word lieu, she doesn’t know.

Aly assumes in the context of this song it must mean birth, but Neria shakes her head. Shena is the verb for born.

Well, what about victory? But Neria shakes her head again. Ena’sal’in is the word for victory, or triumph.

Aly blows out a breath. She’s a lyricist. What would make this poetic.

What about truth?

The elf thinks, and a small smile grows on her lips.

She can’t think of a Dalish word for truth.

Ghilan’nain’s Truth of the Halla?

Aly’s beautiful soprano soon fills the room, and her eyes widen when a soft Alto joins her, singing along in the original Elvhen.

[Ghilan’nain’s Truth of the Halla]   

A haunting melody, completely changed by the understanding of the root of halla lieu’ya, not a praise to The Maker, or the curse of a trickster, but the story of a young god, beaten and battered and blinded, and her creations, and her destruction of them.

[Ghilan’nan’es Halla’lieu’ya]

The tavern erupts when they finish, and poor Neria blushes furiously as her back is slapped, and her hair is tousled, by the patrons of the establishment.

Aly and her new friend make their way to the bar, where foaming tankards await them.

They cheers, and as they tip the beer back, a city elf approaches them, dressed like a Dalish, but he has no vallaslin. He pushes his cowl down to reveal a bald head and shocking purple eyes. His voice is quiet, with a deep, romantic lilt.

“Where did you find that song?”

…

Please be gentle with any constructive criticism on my voice, I am absolutely NOT a singer, I know I don’t have a superstar voice but I’m also not tone deaf, so just… don’t be shitty to me, internet. Listen to the lyrics, not the delivery.

If anyone’s actually interested, I'll message you the lyrics. I also did record all four songs (Andraste, Dread Wolf, Ghilly (English), and Ghilly (Elvhen),) but can only put one video per post. Maybe I'll link them later if people are interested.

*It did not even occur to me until after writing Andraste’s Hallalujah that someone might have had this idea already. I did a little googling afterwards, and someone has put solas’ dialogue to the tune of Hallalujah, but no ones “re-written” it yet in this context (that I could find). My query to you is, why would Solas speak in Leonard Cohen's hallelujah/iambic pentameter if he had never heard it before?

---

Obviously, this can never be turned into a real song, because Sony owns the rights to the OG Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. But the romanticism of this song, changing through the ages, was too good to pass up. I hope you enjoy it, sincerely, and if you are a better singer than I, by all means, use my lyrics and record it, and please send me the link so that I can listen to it!  

Thanks to Weekes, Leonard Cohen, & The Dread Halla Tavern for inspiring this.

Bare your blade, and raise it high.