#like his calm; gentle; understanding demeanor and experience dealing with grief and death is going to be good for her

[invinciblerodent]

I don't really have time to play him more than like an hour every few days, but man, Marcus really is insufferably pretty. Half the time, I've got my finger glued to the screenshot button, lol.

His personality is slowly taking shape in my head too: so far, he's been a far kinder, more emotional person than the broody, analytical scholar I thought he was going to be (I'm leaning into the "arcane grief councilor, magic is not just engineering but also psychology/philosophy" angle a bit more, so he's approaching all from a place of emotion and analysis), and his softness is a choice that comes from a place of rigorous, painful self-awareness.

In his head, so far Marcus is kind of the king of compartmentalization: he's constantly picking through his own thoughts and feelings and slotting them away into neatly labeled boxes, while choosing which ones he'll let himself feel (and chastising himself for the rest), which then also translates to him being very cautious, guarded... maybe even somewhat cynical. He's keeping his distance in general (as one would probably expect from someone who has never much experienced a warm, emotionally fulfilling environment, and has not really been outside of an academic setting much).

I'm thinking that his personal arc is going to be based around his unspoken suspicions continuing to be confirmed over and over again in the worst ways, causing him to sort of recede more and more into himself, but it'll be the others daring to let their feelings be felt (with Neve forgiving him, and Bellara both relying on him in his field of expertise and dragging him out into the light with her exuberance) that's going to create some much-needed balance in the end.

I like to think that where Ver embodied the moniker of "Rook" from a place of strength and forthrightness (acting as Solas' foil in that way, as a leader), Marcus embodies it more from a literal sense: from being stuck, in the highest room of that (ivory) tower.

He's... probably more like Solas than either of them would like to admit, really.