Bethany Hawke and magic (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr on January 26 2018. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

Bethany: And no one minds having to pick up and move [to avoid templars trying to capture the clan's mages], over and over, just to protect a few of you?

Merrill: Why would they mind! Once we've picked over a hunting ground, there's no reason to stay.

Bethany’s self-hatred for her magic is heartbreaking, but a lot of her Act 1 is encountering people with very different relationships to magic for their own reasons, and learning from them.

Bethany: Did you think I don't know? How often we had to move because "the templars were coming?"

Bethany: I know [Mother] loved Father. I guess... I just wonder if she'd have been happier if he hadn't been a mage. If I wasn't a mage.

Anders is not only not running and hiding, but is trying to bring change to how the Chantry treats mages, and is using magic to benefit a community that respects and protects their healer, who they know to be a mage. Like, that’s going to get you killed eventually, but, also kind of badass. You can just do something like that??

Fenris’s fear of magic can’t be fun for Bethany to listen to, though it does also prompt her to stand up for herself and her magic. Fenris has more legitimate reasons than most for his distrust, but that he still eventually comes to trust and even like Bethany I think counts as a win for her self-esteem.

I think Aveline’s distrust of magic might be harder for Bethany to debate than Fenris’s, as I don’t think Aveline is as self-aware as Fenris that it’s fear. She was raised Andrastian and married a templar, she’s grown up with the same propaganda that Bethany has had to struggle not to believe when it says people like her are sinful by existing, only Aveline hasn’t had as much reason to question it, as it’s not people like her that the Chantry condemns. She is nicer to Bethany than she is to Anders, who (not without reason) gives up trying to be nice to her pretty much after strike one while Bethany is polite and diplomatic (through her teeth more often than people realize), and well, she’s young and a bit like family after everything. However, Aveline probably challenges Bethany the least out of Hawke’s companions, because people with her views on mages is what she’s used to. I don’t think Aveline realizes she’s being inconsiderate to her about it, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t.

Varric's indifference to magic brings perspective to how despite that concern about her magic is very prominent in Bethany’s life, the world in general doesn’t revolve around it quite as much. Sometimes not being a big deal after all can be comforting.

Isabela isn’t really scared of magic, either, which makes sense as magic is part of Rivaini culture. I wish this actually came up in their dialogue. What a missed opportunity. I like that Isabela keeps contact with Bethany even when she’s in the Circle if that’s where she ends up, though.

And Merrill, who is the first other mage she meets who has lived their whole life outside a Circle, and is part of a culture that reveres magic, like the Rivaini do.

Bethany: So, there's no Circle among the Dalish?

Merrill: Any child with the gift of magic is apprenticed to a Keeper... in another clan if there's no need in her own.

Bethany: That sounds nice.

I think Merrill’s position is very confusing to both Bethany and Fenris. She’s leaving something each of them wish they could have (a community that doesn’t persecute mages, and a community in general). And she’s a blood mage, but does that mean she doesn’t know what she’s doing? Is she proof the Chantry is wrong, or right? Doesn’t keep Bethany from befriending her, though. She’s wary of the blood magic, but doesn’t condemn Merrill for it. I think these conversations must also bring pretty conflicting feelings to Merrill, who is very aware of what she’s giving up. She knows her people are pretty great about this, is glad to even brag about it a little, but ironically she’s hoping to be freer to pursue her path in magic away from them. Bethany knows what it’s like to live under templars’ noses and keep secret what you are, Merrill is going to have to learn. Every time she favorably compares mages’ lot among the Dalish to that among Andrastian humans reminds her of the dangers she is facing from here on.