#pro mages

[eobard-thawne]

honestly? if i could choose to play as an apostate, i would.

[ohnoitshappening]

The way there are ways to learn to weild magic and magic-like abilities in the universe (Templars, Berserkers, Spirit warriors or whatever that subclass was called) with Templars originally not even needing lyrium to have their skills, and how that could affect the story is ignored especially after it got retconned to lift responsibility from the chantry and fit in the "both sides equally bad" bullshit in...

[olillskio]

Finally finished my piece for the mage war! I know this took long but I finally found motivation to finish this and move on for more art lmao xD

also yes Anders has long hair here because ya all cant stop me

[anneapocalypse]

Honestly something that really affected my view of Varric (and again, I say this with great love for the character) was playing my Terrible Hawke, Emilia, who ends the game an absolute anti-mage fanatic who believes that magic is a curse and it was a blessing that the Maker called Bethany back to His side before she could fall to demons. She is a Hawke who is mainly diplomatic, well-spoken, respected, and absolutely unhinged in her views on magic. She is the Viscount of Kirkwall, and by the time she comes to the Inquisition she's also taken Chantry vows and become an actual templar (after having practiced the discipline off the books for years). She singlehanded kept Kirkwall under Chantry control after Meredith's death. She slaughtered every mage to a one, even the ones who surrendered.

She's Varric's best friend. And he's just as starry-eyed about her in Inquisition as he is about any other Hawke. I love what a deeply unsettling side of Varric that is to see.

She's the best. She's a hero. She saved his city.

[itzscribz]

“Hello, welcome to Café Regale !

What can I do for- Um. Would- would you excuse me for a second ?”

IT’S FINISHED !!

Oh my GOD this was a beast of a project- but I’m soo happy with how it turned out !! Animating these goobers was a lot of fun !

@magebunkshelf

[magnetic-rose]

“vivienne is so rude and mean i can never befriend her” skill issue because vivienne is literally my rock without her the inquisitor would be lost.

[eeriemothz]

maybe I'm just prone to liking the Fandom problematics but I genuinely don't understand the visceral hatred some of the Fandom gives Solas and Anders. Idc if someone doesn't like the characters I do but?? Dawg?? Neither of those two are evil both of them work well because they have a point because their core message "my people are being treated like shit and nothing is going to change unless I make it change" is true. (Solas in particular is just being stupid about it) idk I've seen people all but spit in the faces of Solas and Anders fans and I don't get it.

Anyway this is a Solas and Anders fan page I love the tragic mages.

[gruviaa]

[crunchbuttsteak]

Anders didn’t go far enough when he blew up the chantry.

He should have blown up 17 (or 18, depending on decisions made in Origins) chantries, one for every circle annulled.

[hadescavedish]

Zev: I'll help you stab that fascist if you are nice to me

[kirkwallguy]

i rly think DA's companions peaked with rivalries lol, like that can create such interesting dynamics, when rivaled these people are still following hawke and you can still romance them, Interesting!! THat's cool! why are they doing that, staying with someone who's disagreed with them the whole time or done things they find objectionable - you get different dialogue in cutscenes too, they react to how you treat them (thinking with Merrill you can just chose to not give her the thing to fix the eluvian and you get a different scene after the quest) You can be mean, you can support them or not and they respond to that, it feels like your choices are affecting the characters around you. (diff game but alistair confronts you about Isolde and if you killed her, the kid, or got help, i'd have loved more of that!! more characters going "hey this was fucked up of you, why???" or "I'm glad you handled this" and then you can talk about it more, the companions having Thoughts on your good or bad behavior and actions and voicing it!) also I think not being able to just chat with the companions was a silly choice, especially with the fact that rook can be a crow or shadow dragon etc, wdym we cant just talk about that with the gang??? ask for their thoughts on it all and they ask for rooks, rook could voice support or question what the group is and what they're doing (kinda like with Wynne and mage warden, you can talk about the circles and voice your dislike or support for them), rook could ask for more information and if they know they could share, or they won't if rook isn't a part of that group and it's all meant to be secret or something - and maybe if you ask again when they have high approval they'll tell you anyway cause they trust you, more opportunities for lore and worldbuilding as well as exploring the characters a little more??

idk im :/ rambling lol, i just really enjoyed how much you could say and do in other games, dav feels limited? And like nothing was perfect in the other games but I feel like there were so many more opportunities to learn about everything and the characters felt so much more involved? I do love that the companions talk to each other at the lighthouse like thats great we get to see those dynamics more outside of party banter!

i LOVE the rivalry dynamic and it really helps with each playthrough feeling unique, a hawke who is besties with merril is so different emotionally to a hawke who rivals merril, and it feels like there's a near-endless number of combos? also being able to push back on companions is something people have been complaining about a LOT in dai and dav, being able to spend the entire game disagreeing with a character and still see their entire story (WITH extra dialogue and sometimes entirely different cutscenes to acknowledge the fact that you don't have a good relationship?) it solves such a fundamental problem with relationships in rpgs and i don't get why it isn't more frequently used lol

and yeah i can understand if they wanted to save money not doing chats in the lighthouse (tbh. the inquisition skyhold dialogue options were just annoying and useless to me especially when you had to exhaust them to trigger certain quests), but it just feels like it creates a distance between you and the companions when they can all have conversations with each other at the lighthouse but you can't speak to them? it just feels like such an important feature for the genre and the only other game in the series that doesn't have it is the one that was made in like a year

[justcallmecappy]

Exploring the missed potential of Anders' character

Anders was an interesting character with a backstory and a set of characteristics that would have been amazing if explored further, but I believe his character's potential was tragically squandered by bad narrative choices and poor writing.

Here's a list of how I think his narrative potential hadn't been fully explored:

His name really isn't "Anders" -- it was a name given to him when he arrived at the circle at age 12 and was so traumatized he refused to speak, not even to say his name. BioWare has never revealed Anders' birth name. We also know that he has Anderfels heritage on his father's side, who migrated to Ferelden as a boy. It could have been revealed, through his birth name, that he has some connection to an Anderfels-related plotline: he could be related to the First Warden, or his family could have prominence or influence in the Grey Wardens of Weisshaupt.

Anders is a mage, a Grey Warden, and a host to a Spirit of Justice. This combination of spirit healing (already a rare branch of magic), Blight magic, and a connection to a Spirit of the Fade has never occurred before in known canon. Anders being connected to the mages, the Circle, the Grey Wardens, the darkspawn, and Fade Spirits means that there is a whole world of possibilities to explore with that combination, so many things you could do with his character.

Leveraging off Anders' connection with Justice, a potential key to finding the cure for the Calling could have involved possession by a Fade Spirit. (We already know Fade Spirits are essential to curing Tranquility -- perhaps there's more we could do with that.)

Anders could potentially be a companion to both the Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall, depending on your World State. If your HoF didn't die during the Archdemon battle and continued to Amaranthine, Anders (together with Justice) is the only NPC companion who has traveled with both the HoF and Hawke, and is also a potential love interest to Hawke. (Zevran and Isabela also are NPCs acquainted with both the HoF and Hawke, but only Anders has been a party companion for both.)

Anders could potentially be the only known Grey Warden to have met both the Architect and Corypheus.

Anders could have potentially have battled demons in the Fade three times: his Harrrowing, the Blackmarsh sequence in DA Awakening, and the "Night Terrors" Feynriel rescue mission in DA2. Considering these experiences, plus the fact he has his own in-built Spirit GPS in the form of Justice to help him navigate the Fade, Anders has the highest potential to be the one to rescue Hawke/Stroud/Loghain/Alistair from the Fade (if left there in DAI and has the potential to be rescued).

Anders may have political connections to the throne of Ferelden, if Alistair was made King, and was present at and endorsed Anders' conscription into the Wardens.

If your Warden was Mahariel, Anders would have a common connection with Merrill. If your Warden was Amell, Anders could have an extra connection to Hawke, having known their relative. A Warden Amell or Surana could also have an added layer of their relationship with Anders, having grown up in the same Circle together. (Anders just has a lot of connections to famous people and an extensive network that would have made everyone on LinkedIn jealous, is what I'm sayin 😆)

Anders being a prominent figure in the mage rebellion could also have been explored further -- especially in relations to Fiona, who was coincidentally another mage advocating for mage freedom and with a connection to the Grey Wardens and Alistair.

I just think it's tragic that Anders had so much potential -- arguably one of the characters with the most potential in the overall plot -- and yet BioWare squandered all that potential to push their brand of "grey morality".

The narrative and writing could have framed Anders as a heroic character -- it would have been so easy, the chances were right there -- which would have opened up the chance to explore the potential of his character further in subsequent works, but instead in DAI, BioWare doubled down on slandering his character to drive the point home that he was a villain, and closing off further exploration of his character post DA2.

[squirrelwithatophat]

Wynne defending children from the Templars

It’s interesting to reflect on Wynne’s Establishing Character Moment in Dragon Age: Origins, especially in light of the strange whitewashing of the Templar Order in Inquisition as well as her apparently conservative politics.  When we encounter her in Broken Circle (our first interaction with her since the brief chat at Ostagar), we see her fighting to protect a group of young children not only from demons but from the Templars -- the very military force that claims to protect them.  If she is recruited into the party, in fact, we discover that she had already sacrificed her life for them.  She is technically dead/undead and only kept standing due to possession by a spirit of Faith.

As soon as the party enters the door, she’s fearful that the Warden has come to kill them all on behalf of Knight-Commander Greagoir, and depending on player choices/intentions, she may in fact be correct.  

Wynne: It’s you!  No... come no further.  Grey Warden or no, I will strike you down where you stand!

Warden: Wynne - what are you doing here?

Wynne: I am a mage of the Circle.  More importantly, why are you here?  The templars would not let just anyone by.

Warden: You have children with you.

Wynne: The tower is a place of learning.  Young apprentices are always here.  Why is that surprising?

Wynne: But this is no time to discuss that.  Why are you here?  Why did the templars let you in?

Warden: I am helping Greagoir resolve the Circle’s difficulties.

Wynne: Then you do serve the templars as I feared.  Do they have the Right of Annulment?

Warden: The Right of Annulment?

Wynne: The order from the grand cleric allowing the templars to completely annul a Circle.  Do they have it?

Warden: No, but Greagoir expects it to arrive soon.

Wynne: So Greagoir thinks the Circle is beyond hope.  He probably assumes we are all dead.  

Wynne: They abandoned us to our fate, but even trapped as we are, we have survived.  If they invoke the Right, however, we will not be able to stand against them.

Warden: It’s nothing less than this Circle deserves.

Wynne:  Do these children deserve death too?  Will they die by your hand?

Warden: Mages are a danger.  If I had a say, you would all be culled.

Wynne: Killing us solves nothing, but with training and education, mages learn to control their powers.

Wynne: You’re mad if you think I’ll let you lay a finger on these children.  If will fight you if you won’t listen to reason.

Wynne: I am not afraid of you.

Warden: This Circle must be destroyed, for all our sakes.

Wynne: If you insist on making war on the Circle, we have nothing more to discuss.  It comes to blows, then.  I will stop you or die trying.

BONUS - terrified child fleeing from being murdered:

Commentary

While Wynne can be condescending and sometimes preachy in her support for the Circle, her dialogue both here and elsewhere indicates that she has no illusions about the Templars keeping them locked inside.  

After all, they imprisoned her in Kinloch Hold since she was a young child, took her own child away from her forever, and threatened to slaughter both her and the other children she was mentoring in her son’s stead.  If recruited into the party, she opens up about the despair she felt as a girl when she realized she would be trapped there forever, and it was only by turning to the religious faith that was being forced on all mages in the tower that she began to make peace with her fate.  She knows that if the Libertarian Fraternity successfully leads a vote for independence from the Chantry, the Templars will simply kill them all.  She even uses the term “genocide” to describe what will happen.  She explicitly cites this as the reason why she opposes the independence vote. 

The mages will never be free! The Chantry would never allow it. Our only hope for survival is to show them we can be trusted! Don’t you remember what happened to the Circle in Ferelden? Do you want to give the templars another excuse to call for the culling of all mages?

She doesn’t reject freedom for her fellow mages for any personal advantage, throwing others like her under the bus to reap the rewards of brown-nosing.  If she wanted any semblance of power or status, after all, she would have accepted the post of First Enchanter (or second-in-line to it) a long time ago.  As of Dragon Age Origins, she has consistently rejected the opportunity to become Irving’s successor.  As of the end of Broken Circle, if she joins the party and defeats Uldred’s rebels, she still needs to ask for permission just to temporarily leave the tower, despite having proven her loyalty and competence beyond any reasonable doubt both here and over the past thirty or so years of incarceration.  It takes helping the Hero of Ferelden save the entire country by defeating the Archdemon to convince the Templars to allow her to come and go freely - an opportunity that, as her own son later points out, no one else has had or probably ever would have in their lifetime (and one, as the only the player knows, that is entirely conditional on player choices).

The only context in which she ever even considers fighting the Templars is when she has no other way of preventing the Templars from killing them all anyways - both during Broken Circle and in the climax of Asunder.

Her politics are, in the end, based on fear.

Not the usual fear of the Other or fear of social change that hamper normal politics, but the completely rational fear, as someone at/near the bottom of the social hierarchy, about what the authorities will do to her and everyone like her if they step out of line.  As it turns out, she’s not wrong about what the powers that be are and how they will react - she’s only wrong about the potential for a better future and the rewards of fighting for it.

[corpocyborg]

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: JESTER'S PRIVILEGE Make Meredith laugh.

[anneapocalypse]

At the end of the day you can use "Varric is an unreliable narrator" to overwrite literally any part of DA2 that you don't like. Like you can say, "Oh of COURSE Varric isn't actually against mage freedom! He just said that he objected to Hawke freeing the mages because Cassandra was interrogating him." And sure, I can't prove to you that he isn't lying about that. I can't prove to you that Varric isn't lying about anything. I can't prove to you that the entirety of Inquisition isn't also Varric making things up because he did also write a book about that and we hear Cassandra reading it in the end credits. At the end of the day if you want to you can basically wipe out Varric's entire character as presented to us and say, "Actually he was lying! He's really this."

But at a certain point you do also have to acknowledge that the frame narrative is a storytelling device that's meant to enhance the story, not like... erase it. Or at least I prefer to acknowledge that, because going too far the other way basically guts the story of all meaning. If Varric is a character we are meant to engage with on any level--and I think it's clear from his prominence in the franchise that he is!--then at least some of what we see him say and do needs to be able to meaningfully interpreted, even if we second-guess him, even if we can pick out half-truths here and there, even if we cross-check our interpretations against how he behaves in other parts of canon.

Like at least some of what we're given about Varric has to be meaningful to his character, or why even bother, I guess is what I'm saying.

[brackenfrond]

Since DA2 won't load up properly (it's running in the background if anyone knows how to fix this lmk) I am going to post my thoughts on The Chantry Explosion (yes it deserves caps).

I think it's horrifying, but not in the 'he blew up a church' way.

It's horrifying that after years of campaigning, of peacefully fighting for equality, of being a 'good' rebeller, that it resorted to that. It's horrifying that Anders was fully willing to die for this if it meant that some day mages would be free. It's horrifying when you remember that the right of annulment had already been called for. It's horrifying that this was the only way the mages in the gallows even stood a chance of surviving.

It's horrifying, because if people cared, it would never have ended like that.