#so carver being sent away but it being beneficial and giving him purpose paralleled with roman being sent away and it fucking him up more..

[lelianaslefthand]

i was thinking about my kendall roy-coded hawke and if he'd be a mage or not bc ive assigned shiv to bethany and roman to carver STAY WITH ME. roman and carver honestly is less of a stretch bc both feel inferior to their siblings and have spent their entire lives trying to gain the approval and praise of their father but were always too Different to fit in completely. bethany and shiv are both frequently underestimated and powerful in their own rights. obviously their genders are the biggest thing bc while it doesnt really matter in game as much it does matter A Lot for the roy's dynamic and it's easy to fit in game content to those roles. bethany being the only daughter, the baby girl, father's apparent favorite... carver is leandra's baby boy... hawke is also there, eldest son with the weight of the world on his shoulders

but this is where hawke's class comes into play bc if he's a mage then him and bethany grew up as a kind of duo and were the "higher-status siblings" in carver's eyes as their father favored them by virtue of being mages and building that kind of resentment and inferiority complex. so hawke losing bethany is even more devastating bc they were close, she was the only one who Got It who understood, and sort of a last link to their father bc now its just him. only he has the magic that's defined so much of their lives and while he's already kind of been the head of house for a few years now it's really Just him and the rest of his family who dont really like him but he doesnt have a choice furthering the cycle of becoming his father. whatever that looks like i havent thought about much yet but malcolm is for sure better than logan we arent getting too crazy, but he haunts them in the same way. literally everything they do is "what would father have done". and on a "maybe the poison drips through" note, the poison being magic? inch resting... like we know the poison Did indeed drip through but having that tangible example that it has and how magic is literally viewed as a curse....hmm

on the other hand, non-mage hawke is closer with carver bc they were both sidelined by bethany, daddy's little girl and only one with magic. losing carver, again, is like losing the one who Gets it most but also he was leandra's baby boy (roman the mommy's boy) and she resents hawke for 'letting' him be killed. he still has bethany who has his father's magic which is a blessing and a curse but she keeps him grounded. they're both smart and know what's at stake. after she leaves he's all alone again and their relationship gets strained, all of that bonding thrown out the window. both of the last links to malcolm blaming him for things that he tried his best to avoid but it wasn't enough, it's never enough. it'll never be enough bc he isnt his father but he's still his father's son