#highestdragons

[divorcedwife]

hi! i was wondering what exactly you mean by characters that are kind on purpose? i have an idea but im curious about the details. could you give some examples?

i was also wondering how you like the characters in tevinter nights compared to how you like them in game, just your opinion on them. oh and did you read the book before you played the game or the other way around?

oh of course!! i meant characters who are extremely kind and selfless and never take things personally, but are written this nicely on purpose, to make a point. like the idiot in dostoevsky's book - the prince is kind and sweet and doesn't hold a grudge, he's disarmingly sincere and always compassionate, he has great insight into other people and why they behave the way they do. and it's on purpose in that this makes him extremely singular, a mystery to other people, cause every other character is held back by social conventions or pragmatic desires or cruel impulsions, and the prince simply doesn't have those. i think this idea also applies to hareton in wuthering heights to some level, he's not saint like and doesn't talk people through their issues, but he is patient and willing to endure cruelty, to take violence inward and not look for revenge. everyone else is thinking about revenge and who they can torment as proxy for revenge (like heathcliff taking revenge on hindley by mistreating hareton, little cathy is mean to hareton because heathcliff makes her miserable) but he is willing to defend little cathy from heathcliff and to defend heathcliff from little cathy, even thought that puts him at risk. he's very selfless in a book where everyone else is pretty selfish, so it stands out

i really love both of these characters, i just don't like it if someone is meant to be a normal regular person but they're a saint in social interactions anyway, or if everyone is also like that - i dont remember for sure what prompted me to make that post in the first place but i was probably vaguing veilguard, i imagine. that's just my personal bias but i cant imagine someone insulting me to my face and responding by trying to coach them through their feelings, and it doesn't feel like a natural human response to me, even less so when everyone else is also like that. i wouldn't mind kindness if there was one character who was a ray of sunshine and always selfless, but we have TOO much sunshine in this beautiful guard of the veil for it to feel like a trait specific to anyone

i read tevinter nights after playing dav! i went in dav with zero info on the companions aside from very very basic things, like i saw some gifs. that's about it i ended up not finishing tevinter nights because of the eight little talons story - i disliked that one SO thoroughly that i needed a break after. but that's so weird, because i only realized recently that the author for that also wrote the lucanis story that i really enjoyed?? so idk what happened there, i don't get why courtney woods would do that to me. i hesitate to call anything objectively bad, but i found that story painfully sexist in how it handled the characters of teia and viago, and also not very good as a murder mystery (i guessed the killer based on the fact that the character spoke ominously and had otherwise nothing to do). i liked teia and viago way more before i read this, i will never look at them the same again </3

but i did still like the lucanis story, and it has made me sympathize with illario way more lol. it's a shame he's written with zero subtlety in the game, because i do like their dynamic in this one! if i had to help my cousin on a special mission and he kept changing objectives and getting us in danger by being too kind and sweet, i would also want him mega dead tbh. i'd think about it at least. looking back though, i think the issues with lucanis do start in this story ; in that he's an assassin with a moral code who doesn't kill innocent witnesses and will draw out a killing to make the target suffer more - i think that's 1) unprofessional 2) contradictory? for example, in this story, he kills a bunch of guards. were they all guilty? to the level of deserving death? i wouldn't think so. the idea that someone can be a good & moral assassin who only kills bad guys is a total dead end, it's not possible. especially if he's not a vigilante, but a hired mercenary. it shows in his banter in dav, his sense of morality made him sound more deluded and sinister to me than if he'd said "i kill people for money, whatever" i still think this story is fun in itself, and i enjoyed it. i think this contradiction in lucanis could have been interesting if it had been on purpose and explored in the game, but i think the writers really thought they found the loophole to have an assassin who is morally unquestionable....... too bad i liked neve's story, i thought her bitterness and the way she assumes the worst outcomes and the worst of everyone, but still never gives up, that was fun. if neve was written by the same person who wrote the story (and i think so?), then she was written by the same woman who wrote evka, which i think is amazing because i thought multiple times that they were pretty similar, but i like how it works for evka more. i think it's because evka is balanced by antoine, the optimist to her pessimism, who knows her deeply and allows her to show a softer side without it feeling jarring or contradictory like it did for me with neve

i also liked the first story, the one that had strife, thought i felt VERY unprepared for the first named character in the book to be extremely elf racist. it's not bad, it's definitely on purpose, it's just that since you never see anything like that in da:v, i didn't think it would be on the table. i liked the action scenes and the little twists and reveals, which i think may what weekes is best at writing tbh... my favorite dragon age book i read is probably still the masked empire, and i remember liking that about it, the action and the suspense and the twists

i like the story with antoine and evka, who are great and i love that we get to see them before they fall in love. i think this story benefits from the fact that i know they will come back later and their relationship will grow - on its own, i probably would have found it just ok, but the book and game feel very complementary and work together well in my opinion :-)

other stories have already slipped out of my mind for the most part, i just remember liking the one with emmrich and really disliking the one with dorian. maybe i'll finish it at some point, there probably arent that many stories left anyway... just for completion's sake

[divorcedwife]

your post about Jena being mistaken for a man really hit home for me. im quite tall for a woman (183 cm) and one day i was stocking supplies at my job so i had my back turned to everyone and a customer went "excuse me sir" at which i turned around with an amused smile and the customer was all apologetic but i was having the time of my life

hehe!! im so glad it resonated with you (and other people who related), cause i often draw from personal experiences & memories but less so in this case. there's nothing i love more than a character who says something deeply true and relatable and never unpacks it, so im happy to provide