#yeah Garrien is just that

[garrien-thorne]

Warning; This is an exceptionally long post, but I've semi fleshed out the backstory for Garrien. If you read it all (or any of it honestly) I'm beyond appreciative :,)

I'm just so invested in this fictional guy in my head 😅

• For starters his was born in 9:28 Dragon, which means he was a child during the Fifth Blight!

• he grew up as a city elf in the free marches, though he did not have a family. his parents died when he was quite young. he doesn't remember much about them, and has no recollection of how they died. He has vague memories of his father singing Dalish lullabies to him, never the words but the melodies stuck with him...

he was still cared for by others in the alienage and would spend time with other families, he was basically everyone's son. the very definition of "it takes a village". They made sure he always had a place to sleep, he was always fed and clothed. Safe. Loved.

• his magic manifested when he was 8 and he was forcibly taken from his home and thrown into the Circle. When he was 9 and events in Kirkwall came to a head, an older mage helped him to escape...fearing the writing on the wall and knowing what fearful Templars could be capable of.

• Obviously a 9 year old out by themselves in Thedas, magic abilities or not, would be incredibly unsafe. He ran for a while, never staying in one place, and surviving on the sheer kindness of strangers in small villages, and his own self preservation instincts.

He was eventually taken in by an elf named Adahl'en, after he'd been chased into the woods by humans for being an Apostate, he was badly wounded and this is how he gets the scars across his face. Adahl'en found him bleeding and starving in the woods, well and truly left for dead.

After he nursed the boy back to health, he basically adopted him and that worked out well for Garrien because it meant he wouldn't be sent back to the Circle (bc for all he knew, the Circles were still a possibility, he didn't know much about the Mage Rebellion. Just that he needed to be careful who he used magic around.)

Adahl'en raised him from there on and though he knew next to nothing about magic, he did his best to attempt to teach Garrien how to use his skills. This is how Garrien ended up having his devil may care, "I absolutely will fight in melee range with this staff and there is fuck all you can do to stop me" attitude. He largely used his staff to bludgeon, instead of as a catalyst, in large part because he learned from his experiences that relying on his magic could draw the wrong sort of attention and was more trouble than it was worth.

• When he was 18, Adahl'en died. It was not a tragic death, nor was it in any way violent. Garrien honored him the best way that he knew, trying to follow the customs and traditions that he remembered from when he was just another kid in the Alienage. It was clumsy and he was certain that he'd messed it up somehow, but he knew that the man he'd come to know as his father would have appreciated the effort all the same.

• He couldn't bring himself to stay there after Adahl'en was gone, he wasn't sure what to do with himself. And being alone again sent his mind back to when he was ripped from his home...tossed in the Circle and forced to keep his head down and walk on eggshells to survive...and then pushed back out into a world he didn't know how to navigate, where many people felt justified in despising his existence. He felt like it was only a matter of time until his life took a turn for the worst again, and like the past several years were all just some brief reprieve from reality.

• So he left. He ran, more like. He didn't particularly know what he was running from, but he knew he couldn't stop. If he stopped then he would die, all the horrible events of his childhood would catch him. In a way, for those few short months after his father figure's death, he was that frightened child alone in the woods all over again.

• In 9:47 he meets and assists a group of Wardens protecting a group of miners from a darkspawn incursion, one of whom was named Ronan Thorne. He would never admit but at the time this was motivated in some small part by a subconscious death wish. He was so tired of running, of being afraid of everything around him. He was blighted during this attack and was fully prepared to finally die. But Thorne offered him another way out. The Joining.

It was sold to him as a new purpose, a way for him to be free from his fear of persecution, and a way for his life to have meaning. A way for the world to finally make complete sense and for him to have a Permanent place in it. And Garrien leapt at that chance. He survived and at age 19 he was officially a Grey Warden.

Over the next few months and his eventually arrival at Weisshaupt Fortress as a new recruit, he became close friends with Warden Thorne to the point they were like siblings. It only made sense to him that he would be a Thorne too, as a way of turning a page on his past, and to show his appreciation for the Warden that showed him a new path.

By the time Veilguard rolls around Garrien Thorne is 26 years old. He can be standoffish and extremely curt, he's wary of strangers to a pretty large degree. But he's also kind, if he sees someone in need of help he does not hesitate to offer. He remembers the people from the Alienage, how they did their best to keep him safe, even though none of them were his own blood. He remembers Adahl'en taking him into his home, and allowing him to finally let his guard down. Giving him the space to find himself and supporting him when he decided to live as a man. He remembers Ronan, his brother, who helped him find his purpose.

Garrien is good.

Those closest to him, will see him at his easiest. His voice softens and he smiles so wide at his own dumb jokes. His straightforward demeanor disappears and he seems like a completely different person. Garrien Thorne is simultaneously the stoic hero, and the easy-going bard.

[garrien-thorne]

"Garrien and the Party Dynamics"

I wanna talk about Garrien's relationships with the other members of the Veilguard, so let's start with Davrin!

Semi long post to follow under the break!

Garrien is largely very blunt and straightforward when "on the job", but he is also generally more "glass half full" as well.

He will try to reassure those around him that "everything is fine. I can handle this, I know what I'm doing.", even if he doesn't necessarily believe it himself.

The only time this mask slips, even a little bit, is when he's back at the Lighthouse. And even more specifically than that, when he is with Davrin (and also Varric, first and foremost.)

He sees Davrin as a brother in arms almost immediately, and trusts him to have his back. As a fellow Grey Warden, he doesn't feel like he needs to be so self assured with him. He knows he can say "Yeah, this is bullshit and it's only gonna get worse from here.", and Davrin will get it.

This isn't to say that the other party members *believe* Garrien when he's in "I have to be the hero. I have to be fearless." mode. For instance, Harding most definitely does not because she's known him for long enough to see right through it, and Garrien knows that.

But Davrin is the first one to call him out on it, and the first time that he does Garrien is extremely defensive, before he realizes that he has a point and he's not being malicious. It's okay, and necessary to voice your doubts (or more frequently just vent the sheer stress and general bullshit that they're dealing with) and that doesn't make you less of a leader, less of a hero, or less of a Warden.

"This is all fucked, isn't it?"

"You're telling me."

"And it's going to get worse before it gets better?"

"*That* is an understatement."

"We're going to fix it anyway."

"You're damn right."

~ from a conversation they probably had in the days before Weisshaupt.