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zandalarii · 7 days ago

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So I know you guys are focusing on rewriting a lot of the aspects of DATV and by extention a bit of DAI but I was wondering if y'all had any thoughts on how the qunari subplot of DA2 was handled and maybe a different way for Hawke to still gain the title Champion of Kirkwall, without having to fight the arishok to death or let the arishok take Isabella? Because how the qunari are written in general just reeks of racism- and the fact that the qunari uprising starts because they are protecting elves who killed a cop for brutalizing their sister, and there's no option to take their side. Like is this something you've thought about at all? Would you keep the qunari in Kirkwall and keep the potential for interesting subplots involving the way the chantry handles having a large group from a completely different religion around? But create a different threat for Hawke to semi single handedly save the city from? Or would you scrap the qunari involvement in DA2 entirely and rework things from the ground up?

yess of course! first of all thank you so much again for the question @asharaks and i are always delighted to talk at length about dragon age & what it would take for us to find the various shitty elements stronger and less uncomfortable, and also, it’s sincerely so cool that people are interested to hear our thoughts! so. the qunari subplot in da2.

first of all we would keep it in Some form; looking at it without the layers of racism and islamophobia that have been piled on, the arishok’s story is incredibly interesting to me, mostly as it parallels hawke’s own position and narrative in kirkwall. the arishok, like hawke, is forced to be here, and can’t leave; the arishok, like hawke, has no desire to engage in violence. it’s a tragedy for both of them. hawke just wants to protect their family and survive in the wake of fleeing the blight, and winds up losing their family and changing nothing; the arishok wants to retrieve his artefact, satisfy honour per the beliefs outlined under the qun, and leave, and winds up in this town that hates him and his people, losing many of them, and dying for it. at its heart this story is a tragedy and where we would start is by saying that ought to be highlighted, and this parallel drawn more clearly. although as with a lot of dragon age, the bones of it are already there, in the way that hawke can earn the arishok’s respect and that doing so normally follows taking actions and completing quests that are broadly found “good” within the story — foiling the plans of a chantry extremist to spark conflict the qunari don’t want in order to stir up hatred, finding their missing men, etc. all this helps me at least view hawke’s experience as a refugee disdained by the people of kirkwall for their heritage and forced to take on responsibilities they didn’t ask for including the safety of a town that hates them as they lose everything they hold dear as like… deeply associated with the arishok’s experience. as a perceived interloper in a town that hates him and his people, brought here by a slight committed against them, forced to assume almost sole responsibility for keeping the peace in a situation where nobody else hesitates to escalate violence against Them.

that said, obviously da2 undercuts this story by presenting the qunari as a uniform, homogenous and aggressively expansionist foreign entity, heavily coded as arabic, and (through eg all having the same faces as well as the depiction of their mutilated mage class) characterised as, other than the arishok, a savage threat.

so the very first step to fixing this is the shallowest and simplest: create some more unique qunari models, hairstyles, etc. also, make them less naked! diversify them instead of making them out to be essentially a faceless hive mind horde of clones — including qunari who are elves, humans and dwarves, since we know “qunari” means follower of the qun and includes anyone who lives under it — give more qunari voiced parts with unique voice actors (/ voices), and in general depict them as a more varied group, with individual opinions and personalities. who wear clothes. please.

(and some general changes to qunari culture pertaining to things like the brainwashing and the saarebas which we are almost certainly going to talk about in another post now)

maybe we introduce a few more qunari-centric quests in which it’s possible for hawke to eg. advocate for the qunari to the viscount and get a more developed view of the impossible situation the arishok and the viscount are both in, the rising tensions within the city and where they’re coming from — including speaking in more detail to seamus and his qunari partner ashaad. here it might be helpful to start laying groundwork for the idea of converts to the qun being highly valued, and conversion as a choice not taken lightly; this idea will reoccur later with aveline and the elven converts. we can also start exploring the idea of converts not being taken seriously by marchers, because the qun is not afforded much respect culturally in thedas. however, in sister petrice’s quest she states outright that the chantry is “losing faithful to the qun,” so this idea can also be explored to grant qunari and the qun more depth and sympathy; what the chantry considers a loss, a theft, is grounded in the material conditions in kirkwall, so why Are so many people choosing to leave the chantry and convert to the qun? hawke can be given the opportunity to speak to converts and learn their motives, on which they’ll speak about the injustices they’re subjected to in kirkwall (particularly elves, those from darktown, etc), the dissatisfaction they have with the chantry and the values and ideas that the qun offers them as a very different, but not inherently worse, way of life. (we’re also going to do away with the implication that the qun is inherently oppressive and abusive) as the act goes on, the qunari compound gains more human, elven, even dwarven converts, disillusioned with the chantry and the rulership and searching for a place to belong that looks out for them.

as you gain respect with the arishok for completing quests of this sort and engaging respectfully with qunari, the other qunari in the compound (in particular the old hands/the ones who were with the arishok when he first landed in kirkwall) become more inclined to talk to you, and explain the intricacies of qunari culture; this includes things like the significance of qunari going by their titles/the name of their functional roles rather than ‘personal’ names (perhaps it’s not that they don’t have them but that they’re considered very intimate and very private, or perhaps they simply don’t use them when they’re in the act of fulfilling their duties, in this case acting as formal qunari presence in kirkwall). fenris, too, has more to say about the qun and the concepts surrounding honour within it, as well as the significance and sanctity of the tome of koslun — here, maybe merrill can draw parallels to the dalish and the meaning of recovering lost and stolen artefacts significant to their culture, to highlight that the need is a real, grounded and reasonable one that companions have sympathy for.

as we near the end of the second act, the plot progresses as normal in broad strokes — bela stole the tome of koslun, hostility towards the qunari is ramping up in kirkwall even as the qunari can’t leave, etc — but the inciting spark is given more attention: a pair of elves have killed a guard after he assaulted their sister and got away with it despite their attempts to seek justice through legal means, and as converts to the qun, the arishok is protecting them from retribution by the guard. and aveline wants them back.

here, we get a few changes in focus: first, a little more time is given to why these people who killed someone were allowed to convert and accepted into the qun: because as far as the arishok and the qunari are concerned, they’re not criminals. as per fenris’s earlier explanations about how the concept of honour and answering for it works within the qun, they are not considered to have done anything wrong in killing their sister’s attacker, and in fact it is the guard (and aveline as guard captain) who is considered by the qun to be lacking since it’s ostensibly their job to mete out justice and correct wrongs. when aveline and sebastian imply that the elves are using the qun to hide, the arishok is deeply insulted by the insinuation. particular weight is given to the implications of “hiding behind” the qun — and the underlying assumption about the worth of the qun, that it isn’t valuable of itself and is only of use to these converts as a shield. in actuality, it offers a community which wouldn’t condemn them for seeking justice or for being violated; it’s about disillusionment with being marchers, and what another mode of thought and community can offer, hence why the arishok finds the insinuation of the qun only worth being used as a shield so degrading.

the arishok is deeply disdainful of aveline in particular: as captain of the guard, a role she has spilled blood for and viciously defends, as well as one she demands respect for, it is her responsibility to see justice done: in failing to do so, in failing to respond to the elves’ complaints and protect the vulnerable members of the community she takes the role of Protector over, she's disgraced herself and the position. the arishok makes it very clear that he doesn't view her as worthy of her position — as one protector to another, as a military leader, as a person with a job they deem a great honour and a great responsibility, his disgust in her failure is visceral.

when aveline attempts to take the elven converts back, disregarding their conversion in order to ‘bring them to justice’ (which the qunari don’t agree with), the arishok opposes her, as in the game; as in the game, hawke is able to agree with his reasons, backing up the qunari and siding against aveline, and the arishok will again voice his frustration at his being trapped here, reiterate the degree of patience and tolerance he has shown, and articulate just how insulting this situation really is. focus is shifted from the loss of the tome of koslun — it is a theft that occurred years ago, and is not associated with the kirkwall ruling class, while the insult he's suffered at aveline's hands, in her position as captain of the guard, comes directly from kirkwall itself. at this point, aveline and the guards become hostile, drawing weapons on the qunari, and hawke and the others are forced from the compound.

in the beautiful dream, rather than launch a wholesale assault on the city right away, the arishok demands an audience with the viscount, seeking to face him leader to leader; this is discouraged by both aveline and elthina, who view it as an act of aggression, suggesting a trap or deceit, ideas that are refuted by fenris. finally, in the courtyard outside the palace, the violence breaks out, with groups of civilians caught in the middle. the arishok takes over the palace while hawke & co are busy trying to get civilians to safety, to keep guards from massacring non-combatant qunari and vice versa, and by the time they reach the throne room, the viscount is dead. (depending on whether you sided with aveline or the arishok, either the guard or qunari will be verbally hostile towards you as you pass, but you will not have to fight anybody to get here)

as in the game, the arishok expresses, again, his frustration, the dishonour and disgrace he's experienced, and the patience he's displayed in withholding action thus far. his rant about the injustice and self-obsession of kirkwall remains more or less the same (“you feed and feed, looking up only when the meal is interrupted”) but it is more focused on the corruption, the failure of the ruling classes to provide for the people under their remit. the qunari philosophy of the Role as sacrosanct comes heavily into play here: the role, the job (holistically, not just as employment) you choose should be held dear and sacred to you, as your purpose and your calling in life: to disgrace your chosen role is to disgrace yourself, and the propensity of human society to take roles of responsibility (rulership, nobility) for personal gain is obscene to him. hawke arrives, and he acknowledges that they have been placed/have placed themself in a particular role: his challenge to them is to assert this, to prove their capacity to fulfil the role of Protector to the city, one way or another.

this is where bela returns (if bela returns), and hawke has a choice. if bela has returned the tome of koslun, he regards that debt as paid; by putting herself at risk, by returning when she does, he is willing to forgive the transgression, but his focus is now on aveline and the insult she's delivered. by disrespecting the elven converts, invalidating their choice and the legitimacy of the qun as a separate arbiter of justice, she's gravely insulted him, and he demands justice for this slight. not only that, but as guard-captain of kirkwall, he sees her as irreparably failing in her own duty as she did not protect the elves before they converted and refuses to protect them now. hawke's choice is therefore whether to hand aveline over for execution (as the punishment that would have befallen the elves, this meets and matches what he regards her as deserving; we're not doing scary qunari brainwashing here. more on this later), or to fight him to keep her. again, it is emphasised that by now he is acting in defence of his own people, the elves who have converted, and the return of the relic soothes his ire towards isabela but not towards the unrelated insult that is aveline, guard-captain of kirkwall, with the backing of the city-state, attempting to subvert and prevent justice from being done. this is what leads to the attack on kirkwall, and specifically on the kirkwall ruling class: rather than being unfocused expansionist violence against a whole city for the crimes of one (non-marcher) woman whose crime was committed as an individual before she ever came to kirkwall and unknown to its people, it is a response to a perceived breakdown of diplomatic relations, a failure of the viscount and his government to fulfil their roles, and this, combined with the officially sanctioned attempt to bypass his authority in his compound against his people, is the breaking point.

if hawke chooses to hand aveline over: the arishok executes her then and there. with justice done, and the tome returned, he is free to return to par vollen. if hawke refuses to hand her over, events unfold as in the game, with his respect levels determining whether he duels you or whether you have to fight all his warriors at once, as he deems you unworthy of the honour.

if bela does not return, you're forced into open conflict — there's no duel to be had, no home for him to return to. the tone here is of resignation, of the inevitability of this conflict, and hopelessness of it. he attacks, and you kill him.

hawke is named champion of kirkwall: if aveline is dead, it is an empty, sneering title, bestowed as much as punishment as reward. you saved the city, you ended the violence, but the implication is clear: you did so by betraying your people — no matter that those same people view you (and aveline) as worthless refugees, no matter that you were the only one to take action. you're a foreigner, and you handed over the guard captain to a foreigner. if aveline survives, and you killed the arishok, the title is much more sincere; it suits the story, a brave lone warrior facing down the qunari savage and winning. no matter the tragedy of it; no matter that both your hands were forced. narratively, regardless of how you earned the title, the victory is a hollow one: your hand was forced by the structural violence of kirkwall as much as the arishok’s was, you either handed over aveline to be killed (and with her one of your last remaining ties to ferelden) or killed a man who didn’t deserve to die to protect a city that didn’t care about you until this moment, and meredith names you champion of kirkwall as a distraction from her own ascension to almost-complete power, a title that gives you visibility and responsibility but no actual power to change anything.

your choice here also instigates a few ambient changes in act 3; if you chose to hand aveline over for execution, the chantry and the guard deify her almost instantly and she becomes a mark against you, the dutiful guard captain that the foreigner-champion sent to her death for no greater crime than upholding kirkwall law. while kirkwall elves that you meet from now on will be predisposed to trust and like you, the guard and the chantry distrust you and ambient dialogue to that effect follows you anywhere you come across them. conversely, if aveline lives, the guard goes back to hating her quickly — instead of the marcher martyr, they view her once again as the fereldan bitch exerting authority she hasn't earned, and their favour towards you for saving her doesn’t last — though the population of hightown will hold you in higher esteem. (any elves you meet will trust you less, also). even if you saved aveline, it is possible to cut off any relationship with her on next meeting with her for what she did.

overall, the changes that we’d want to see would be geared towards humanising the qunari and giving them solid reasons to act that don’t ultimately paint them as a faceless expansionist aggressor, as well as giving more weight to the responsibility that kirkwall’s law enforcement and government hold in the whole affair and the parallels between the arishok and hawke caught in circumstances beyond their control. basically:)

#long post #dragon age #q

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