101 Dragon Age questions

A fandom question meme made by gentlelarkspur on tumblr, here's the original post.

1. How did you get into Dragon Age?
Someday I'll write a book about how it happened, perhaps, except make it sound actually interesting, and then admit the at least alleged true course of events under interrogation. I... actually just can't remember.

2. Have you finished all three games?
I've finished DA:O and DA2, but I still haven't started DA:I.

3. How long did it take you to finish the series?
A long time. I'm thorough and slow, and like to stop to take screenshots at every turn. Like here, for example, is a mid-fight Justice with a floating shirtless guy.

No, it's not a staff, ser templar. It's a selfie stick.

Anders Manifesto

Originally posted to tumblr on March 15 2018. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

Anders (Act 1, Tranquility): But my anger... when I see templars now, things that have always outraged me, but I could never do anything about...

He comes out. And he is no longer my friend Justice. He is a force of vengeance. And he has no grasp of mercy.

Justice (Act 2, Night Terrors): I am Justice. Anders has told you of me.

Or in other words,

Anders: Justice is no longer Justice. I corrupted my friend by being too angry about the oppression I face, because I ruin everything.
Justice: Nope, still me. Please love yourself.

[TW: death, suicide, abuse, mention of blood]
[post contains spoilers throughout the Dragon Age series, mostly DA2.
Also note, I use singular they/them pronouns for both Anders and Justice outside direct quotes from canon, not because they’re a 2in1 deal but because agender headcanons, I trust this will not be a problem.]

Anders and Justice merged with good intentions, but with neither knowing very well what they were doing. They have both had strong influences from ideologies that treat being what they are now as something inherently wrong and threatening to both their kinds, which hardly alleviates their doubts about whether what they are now is deserving of a label like “abomination” after all. I doubt it helps that the language they mostly speak doesn’t seem to even have a more neutral term for a being resulting from a spirit and a mortal merging, or that the merging in particular was extremely traumatic.

Evelina deserved better (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr on May 27 2017. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

Evelina: Do you have coin to spare, messere? My children are starving.

On my first playthrough I either completely missed encountering Evelina in Act 2 or had forgotten about her by Act 3. So when on my second playthrough I still had vivid memories of her horror movie esque appearance in On The Loose, meeting her three years before that happens and while she’s still herself was a punch to the gut. Hawke can give her money, but it won’t make a difference. She will still eventually have to go beg the Chantry for help to feed her family, and they will respond by locking her up in the Circle, leaving the children she’s been looking after to fend for themselves.

And, well, I don’t like the On The Loose quest, more on that when I get to it, I guess. But about Evelina specifically, I feel like she’s also kind of a victim of the devs, too, dropping the ball on her, even more than Huon and Emile who don’t get a very fair treatment, either, because you know who I had in my party when I ran into her? Anders. Who grew up in Kinloch Hold. Evelina is a Fereldan mage, who spent eight years in Kinloch Hold, only escaping the Circle to flee the Blight.

I’ve seen people wonder about whether Anders and Cullen recognized each other in DA2 and why not, but I think that one makes perfect sense. Cullen had only been a templar for a year at the time of the mage origin in DA:O, Anders spent a year (!) in solitary confinement before escaping for the final time, probably not long either before or after the mage origin. It’s entirely possible they barely or even never crossed paths in Kinloch. But Anders and Evelina should recognize each other. 

I’m trying to come up with other explanations than writing oversight, but nothing else makes sense. Like did they forget when giving her a backstory where one of Hawke’s companions is from, or…

Just a guess (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Wilmod: (Laughs) You have struck me for the last time, you pathetic human. To me!

Hawke: Do you think he was possessed?

Karl Thekla and BioWare's double standards in writing LGBT+ characters (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr in 2016, reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

[tw: death, homophobia, biphobia, abuse]

Sometimes I’m hit with just how bitter I am at the way DA2 brushes Karl Thekla and his relationship with Anders under the rug.

Aveline and Anders have both recently lost their significant other, both with the same additional trauma of just how said significant other died, too. For starters, that’s a clear parallel between two of your Hawke’s companions, which gives insight into both their characters.

Karl is dead because of templars, people like Aveline’s husband Wesley, so Anders doesn’t feel inclined to be respectful to Wesley’s memory. Anders calling templars jailors of innocent people whom they abuse with little to no consequences is something Aveline tends to not want to hear, because her late templar husband was a good person, right? That Aveline and Anders don’t get along well enough to support each other in their loss is sad yet makes sense, though there’s potential for better understanding if only they both knew they have this in common. The emotional impact and context for the way they behave towards each other is certainly lost if the player doesn’t know it.

Fenris and Anders's idea of small talk apparently (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr on May 10 2016. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

[TW: slavery, abuse]

Fenris: Why was your friend made Tranquil? Do you know?
Anders: No, and it doesn’t matter. Nobody deserves that.
Fenris: I know some mages who deserve that.
Anders: Really? Perhaps they should start making slaves Tranquil—then they wouldn’t dream of escaping! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
Fenris: Slaves do not attract demons that try to possess them.
Anders: Which clearly justifies it? What a perfect solution!

To be clear, which it apparently hasn’t been to many from the conversation itself, Anders isn’t making a suggestion for how the world should be with that comment about slaves, not even just to say something offensive to rile up Fenris. It’s an attempt to illustrate how wrong the magical lobotomy that’s Rite of Tranquility is. Anders compares the Circle system to slavery in several conversations with Fenris and other characters, and it’s not exactly untrue, either, considering the Tranquil especially are literally used as free labor by the Chantry while they can’t say no or make demands. I mean it is also offensive, but I don’t think that was the main point.

They both lack some context in this conversation or it might go more smoothly.

Thoughts on Fenris and helping mages (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr on September 28 2015. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

I personally like my DA2 companions friended and my Hawkes pro-mage, and while that’s a bit complicated with Fenris, it’s really not that incompatible at all.

[TW: abuse]

Exploring Anders's clinic

Since I like to snoop around the companions’ home bases, Anders might have a balcony, too!

Fic often mentions Anders having a back room at the clinic for a bed and other personal belongings, few as those might be. In the game the two doorways at the back of the clinic lead to a space filled with random rubble, which seems to open to the cliffside at one end. I’m willing to believe this is just how things start out, though, like with Fenris’s mansion supposedly having dead bodies for several years, and once Anders is settled enough and has some spare time, this space gets cleaned up.

The open wall, though, is strange. Not that it exists, Darktown is part old mineshafts, maybe that was for dumping cartfuls of whatever unusable rubbish you get when mining, into the canal below. But the light coming in from there is flickering, like a fire, not like daylight. And there definitely seems to be some sort of platform there.

Maybe it’s just that the map designers needed a bright light there so the player can’t see there’s not actually more scenery behind the wall, and put one of those campfires there to provide it, and the platform is just to have something to put the fire on. But also, maybe not. Maybe a balcony. Maybe a signal fire for something. I don’t know, do with this what you will.

Well, how does the Amell estate cellar work, then?

Other than that it's the biggest.

Carver: Apparently the most extensive wine cellar in Kirkwall is now a slave highway from the Undercity. That's the family legacy.

Fun fact this same ladder leads to a pride demon lair in Act 3.

Fenris's mansion, how does it work?

I’d never realized before that there’s a third floor even in the game, though I figured there must be more rooms than we’re shown (same with the Amell estate, or else neither would be a very functionally designed house considering we never see, for example, a kitchen in either of them) because those rooms are not necessary for gameplay. But with the Hightown mansions all (except the Amell estate) sharing the same basic floorplan, it was easier to notice in the mansion entered in Night Lies, since it’s furnished there, and not obscured by a beam of moonlight and dust particles. Where are the stairs to that floor, though, who knows.

There's a whole room there with an open wall and space for a bunch of bookcases, and a door leading to presumably a balcony/roof terrace since it's flanked by windows.

A small indoors balcony with a door to??? It's flanked by windows, too, so maybe you enter this balcony through a terrace that has an entrance to the house elsewhere? ...or it's just indoors windows.

Cave at Sundermount summit (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr on February 3 2017. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

If you follow the path further to the Sundermount summit than Merrill’s recruitment quest and other possible visits require, you find the cave that will later in the game be revealed to be the place Audacity, the demon/spirit Merrill has been consulting, is bound in. You can’t go in the cave, though, as the entrance is sealed by a magical barrier, looking much like the barrier Merrill opens with blood magic just before the graveyard. This is in Act 1.

So… I went to check the place first thing in Act 2. I’ve done no quests or stopped to talk to anyone I could avoid, just sprinted up the mountain path. And it looks like the cave has not been left alone in the past 3 years.

There’s an empty cart blocking the mouth of the cave now, but the barrier is gone.

Waywards (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr on February 3 2018. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

The companions’ remarks during quests can be pretty revealing sometimes how personal the task currently at hand is to them, for reasons Hawke may not be aware of yet. Wayward Son hits close to home for a lot of them.

(For a lot of them the reason is parents, but not only that. In any case, warning for, in addition to references to slavery, child abuse or otherwise difficult relationships with parents.)

Bethany: Can we help this woman? This could be Mother...

Carver: This will be Mother if we're not careful.

Isabela is a better person than anyone (herself included) expects her to turn out to be

Originally posted to tumblr as several posts. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

[TW: slavery, misogyny, racism, abuse] [Spoilers for Dragon Age 2]

Isabela: Sometimes I come to the docks just to look at the boats.

Isabela deserves all the boats, and I’m sad the only way she gets to have one again during the game involves letting Castillon go. It’s obviously important to her, considering it’s what the desire demon tempts her with in Night Terrors, too. What’s a pirate without a ship, after all? It's far from being just about the ship itself, though.

How to not

Carver: So, you're not like a lot of other girls.

Merrill: No, I'm an elf.

Carver: Right. All right then.

Carver: You're very different from other elves.

Fenris: Oh? You know them all?

Fenris and Merrill's views on Fade creatures

Originally posted to tumblr on December 22 2017. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

[TW: blood in second image]

Merrill: Demons are just spirits. Like honor or joy. It's not their fault they are what they are.

Fenris about the summoned Shades the party just fought: He sends spirits to do his fighting for him.

One thing Merrill and Fenris actually agree on is not subscribing to the idea of demons and spirits being a mutually exclusive dichotomy, found in at least Andrastianism. Fade creatures are all just spirits, with “demon” as a synonym.

For Merrill this means that if you're careful enough, all or at least most of them have potential to be helpful when necessary. For Fenris it means he wants nothing to do with any of them.

Petrice in disguise, is that you? (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr on December 16 2017. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

"Lowtown Peasant": Qunari are monsters, I keep saying! Maybe now that they've nabbed his boy, the viscount'll do something about them.

The magic sheep of the family

Originally posted to tumblr on December 16 2017. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

Leandra: It’s been a stain on our lineage. No family of good standing would ever marry into a line with magic.

Ok thanks mom, so we won’t have to worry about you trying to set us up with your snobby neighbors’ snobby kids even when we’re rich again, right?

Shadow Warrior (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr on December 13 2017. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

Something I hadn’t noticed before. The Shadow Warrior that drops from the cave ceiling at the Sundermount passage actually fights the Shades that appear at the same time. Once I noticed, I reloaded and had my party deliberately stay away to make sure the damage I saw them take wasn’t caused by any of us (Merrill is attacking the other Shade there, and my Hawke is just standing in the corner for a camera angle, not doing anything, and I didn’t summon the mabari for this fight), and yeah, they’re definitely fighting. I wish I could talk to this person instead of having to kill them, since the game labels them an enemy from the moment they appear. They turn out to be an elf when they die. What’s their story?

Merrill: The mountain is home to a lot of terrible things. Remnants of a war, long ago. Be on your guard.

But I think they might be an example of the remnants of an ancient war that Merrill mentions, rather than a living person from this time, an echo of an event from centuries ago playing out. The war was fought between Elvhenan and Tevinter. There would have been plenty of elves that fought and died, and summoning Shades to fight sounds pretty characteristic of Tevinter. Audacity being bound at the mountaintop is another remnant.

Are they the actual ghost of the person or is this more like a 4D movie retelling by spirits?

Biggest hazard to ranged fighters: elbows of other ranged fighters

Originally posted to tumblr on December 13 2017. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

Do you guys think that maybe you should spread out a bit, or are you huddling together for warmth?

Hawke Humbling (Dragon Age 2 spoilers)

Originally posted to tumblr on December 13 2017. Reposted here for archiving of posts I want to keep.

Not exactly Hawke Shaming, but perhaps a bit of that.

The Hawke family has it tough at the beginning, with the Blight, more than a little stressful arrival and making ends meet in Kirkwall… but they do still manage to have access to resources not available for everyone who’s gone through the same they have.

Hawke: Our uncle is Gamlen Amell. He knows we're coming. Surely someone could find him.

Carver: He's a nobleman here in the city. Our family has an estate.

Captain Ewald: He comes back, I'll bring you to him. But I don't have time to—

Fereldan deserter: What? You're going to let them through?

Other Fereldan deserter: We've been here for four days! They just got here!

I really like that this mod gives the characters labeled as Deserters the same armor as Warrior Hawke, to emphasize that they’re no worse than Hawke, who is just as much a deserter themself having run from Ostagar. It’s quite understandable that from their point of view the Hawke family are cutting in line.

It’ll come up later, too, especially when we get to Anders’s recruitment quest, where Andy&Lirene are, out of their own pretty empty pockets, basically running the refugee relief program the city or the Chantry should be responsible for but can’t be bothered with. Hawke’s job with Athenril or Meeran is shitty and so’s Gamlen’s house, but it’s work and lodging.

Some of the random encounter gangs in the city later are also just people who never got out of the kind of jobs Hawke had to make do with in the intervening year and Act 1. Especially the Dog Lords, who are very obviously Fereldans, still doing this stuff in Act 2. It’s easy to ignore as they are just NPCs who attack you and then you fight, but for want of an ancient treasure and ties to nobility, who knows, this could have been you, Hawke.