#then what does that say about how BioWare is being run rn

[jamiedodgerart]

hey i marathoned da2 over the course of a week at @1500birds‘s house and drew a lot of stuff for it. there’s info in the captions but im gonna talk more about him under the cut (spoilers for all of da2)

this is mal hawke! (short for malcolm, he was named for his dad.) he’s a rogue

mal’s pretty purple, his emotions are behind 7 layers of jokes but he’s very dedicated to his family. he took his role as eldest sibling seriously- haha, no, he teased the shit out of carver and let bethany climb irresponsibly tall trees with him, but he did really care and look out for them. he was kinda lowkey a highwayman before the blight- probably did some poaching, robbed a few rich merchant vans, stuff like that. gambled and got drunk a lot.

blight happens, ogre smushes carver. in the moment, his mother blames mal. and although later she apologized and forgave him, he never forgot, and never forgave himself.

(aveline killed the ogre btw. mal was taking care of grunts, halfway across the field)

he joined the smugglers when they got to kirkwall. it wasn’t too far from what he did before and he wasn’t keen on going out of his way to harm people. he was good at finishing fights, though, and he gained a reputation for it over his year with the smugglers. it got his family into the city, and for that it was worth it.

mal got along REALLY well with varric, merrill, and anders (whom he later fell in love with. more on that later) he didn’t always agree with aveline, but they were still close, and he really didn’t get along so well with isabela or fenris. ah well. he tried to be friends, tried to help, but it didn’t work out.

he almost took bethany to the deep roads. almost. but as he was planning who to take... well, out of the game, my friend bran spilled the beans and said something very bad would happen if i did. EDIT bran said i got that part wrong and that i figured it out myself, which i forgot, and ordered me to clear their name. official statement: bran kept that secret. so mal had a really bad gut feeling and took merrill instead. bUT SHIT, SHE GOT CAUGHT BY THE CHANTRY INSTEAD OF DYING. i GUESS that’s better. but still, mal blamed himself for not being there to protect her.

so apart from lingering guilt, mal’s doing pretty well in act 2. hes got a relationship going with anders, hes financially stable, bethany’s doing pretty well, considering, he’s got a cool house- oh and kirkwall’s headed towards possible war but that’s nothing new, is it. 

a bit more bg on mal hawke: he’s real fond of compromises. in his mind, there’s always a way out, always a third option. he’s pretty pro-mage, bc he did grow up w two mages in his family and never really learned to fear magic, and later because he spent a lot of time with anders, whose enthusiasm for mage rights is kind of infectious.

that third option thing? a really bad philosophy to have in kirkwall. why are people so polar. have none of you ever heard of nuance

anyway can’t remember a whole lot more bc this post was supposed to be done and posted in june, when i actually played, but his mother is murdered. because he wasn’t there/because he didn’t get to her fast enough/because he didn’t solve that mystery in time/because he screwed up. so guess who he blames (it’s himself)

so amidst mal’s grief the whole city is going to shit, because the qun won’t fuck off and isabela stole a book. mal asks if she’ll please give it back, because Everything Is Going To Shit, This Is The Best Resolution We Have, and she refuses bc if she does she’ll be in deep shit herself, and runs off with it. damn. so mal fights the arishok, wins, and decides hes had enough of kirkwall’s shit for a little while and takes a long-ass nap.

three years later, kirkwall’s going to shit again, because it just can’t keep it together. come on, kirkwall. the templars and mages are fighting, and everyone expects mal to have some kind of authority on the shituation. he doesn’t bc hes literally just some guy who happens to fight good that everyone seems to think has a handle on things. he asks meredith and orsino if they could maybe chill out for two seconds but of course they don’t because this is kirkwall and nobody knows how to chill in kirkwall except varric. mal ends up supporting the mages

anders asks mal for help with getting un-possessed. mal 100% wants his bf to not be possessed anymore, bc it’s getting scary, so he readily helps out getting the stuff anders needs. but. it’s a little fishy. look mate i know the qunari are the only ones who know what gunpowder is rn in history but you’re asking me for saltpeter and i dont think you’re supposed to ingest that. anders is like ok, i did lie a lil bit, but there’s a point to this- and mal’s pissed! bc anders lied to him! but agrees to help a little more

so that’s how mal ended up chatting with the grand cleric about the shituation and how there’d probably be an ok solution if people just sat down and chilled out a little, while anders set up the charges to blow up the chantry and escalate the whole thing to hell tier

as you might expect, mal’s hELLA PISSED when anders blows it, not just because he lied, not just because he took advantage of mal trusting him, but because now the templars are going to, yknow, kill every mage, so mal’s remaining family (bethany, and merrill, bc she counts as family too) are in danger, and at this point mal doesn’t have a lot of family left to lose. he tells anders to gtfo before he kills him.

aveline, varric, and merrill stick with him, and fenris leaves to join the templars. later on, they fight. mal doesn’t WANT to fight, and makes an attempt to hash out some ending that didn’t involve one of them dead, but fenris isn’t having any of it. he’s not a fan of mal never wanting to make a straight decision on anything, and forces him to make a choice: die, or fight and kill his former friend. 

fenris dies.

the remaining boss fights continue as expected- bethany rejoins the party, orsino panics and goes full corpse-monster, meredith goes nuts and full lyrium-monster, the mages and templars are left without leaders and if things weren’t on their way to hell in a handbasket they sure are now. mal decides it’s time to retire, and never set foot in kirkwall the hell city again. 

hes got a cabin in the woods, living out the lumberjack life and drinking away his problems