So. I just discovered that it's possible to get Clan Lavellan mostly killed by making the wrong decision on the war table. I did this with Nayeli, the elf I'm using to romance Solas. So what this means, obviously, is that Nayeli makes TERRIBLE life choices. So awful. She got half her clan killed, and she is (unknowingly) dating Fen'Harel. I also decided that the reason she's romancing Solas is because he's ~mysterious~ and she's nosy as fuck so mostly she's just trying to find out everything about him, and hey if that leads to smooches she's fine with that too. BUT MOSTLY I JUST FEEL BAD ABOUT ACCIDENTALLY KILLING CLAN LAVELLAN
Well, like I said, I'm still in the middle of Razeia's playthrough, but here's what I know about her: This is kind of ignoring the given Dalish mage backstory but whatever. Razeia, when she was very young, was a city elf magekid in the Free Marches, grabbed by the templars, but somehow (she was relatively young at the time and doesn't remember much of this) on the way to the Circle something went wrong (giant, road-washing out storm+mudslides) and she escaped. She ran through the woods, for a long while, and managed to hide out in an old shrine to Dirthamen. She huddled in there for most of a night, and sometimes has nightmares about being there and hearing heavy footsteps, but she wasn't found by the Templars. Instead, that morning, someone from Clan Lavellan - maybe as-of-then First Deshanna? idk - was paying respects at the shrine and found her hiding there. Raz was then basically adopted by the clan. As she got older, though she never told anyone, she took her escape from the templars as a miracle from the gods, and therefore always venerated Dirthamen especially (hence why she's got his vallaslin! Also she's a supernerd who really likes learning about stuff, so the secrets+knowledge stuff fits.) She actually genuinely, wholeheartedly believed in the Evanuris as a result of this. The whole 'Herald' thing has led to a LOT of sleepless nights for her. Anyways, one of my headcanons is that Clan Lavellan took in a lot of runaway/mage underground escapee elves, and this is why a Dalish elf has some indepth knowledge of Circles and the Chantry. Anyhow, Raz was actually involved in the smuggling-out-of-the-city thing, and may have met Anders and Hawke at some point (though she almost definitely had a hood and scarf to cover up her face - there's no need to take unnecessary risks, which means that Hawke may or may not have recognized her.) During the actual game, I think she is constantly at some level worried and stressed, and though I'm in the middle of the game I think she is like... surreptitiously examining legal and historical books, because she is pretty damn sure that as soon as this rift business is over with (and even now) the Chantry is going to do its very very best to erase the fact that she was devoutly Dalish and a mage, her current plan once everything is solved with the rifts is a) somehow, some way, finagle legal things to get the Dalish a new homeland and b) tear apart every bit of the Inquisition infrastructure once she's got what she wants. She is not leaving the Chantry a branch of military power, especially one with as good a rep and as much influence as she's gotten the Inquisition. I don't know whether she thinks she'll be able to go back to her clan after all of this is over. She's been avoiding the thought for a while. She just knows she doesn't want to get stuck with the Inquisition after Corypheus is dealt with, she is not going to become the Chantry's latest piece of propaganda.
Incidentally, what I was not expecting when I started playing Razeia is how ruthless she turned out. Like, she is nice and generous and protective, she will go out of her way to bring flowers to a grave or retrieve someone's ring or collect supplies for refugees - but at the Orlesian ball she stood with the advisors and weighed her options. And she waited until she wouldn't be able to get to Florienne in time and sprinted towards her only a few seconds too late to save Celine, what a tragedy (in the aftermath she meets with Briala and talks, very quietly, and some kind of understanding is reached.)
Orion's development was kinda the opposite, rather than trying bland diplomacy I tried to have him be kind of an asshole, but I wanted to unharden Leliana, and so when he scolded her saying her treacherous spy deserved to live he immediately became just a very kind cinnamon roll whose goodwill is tested SO often that he just wears a permanent scowl of "fucking seriously?". Orion firmly believes in second chances and the possibility of redemption for EVERYONE, in principle, even though he knows it's probably not gonna happen. He believes you just HAVE to... not necessarily believe people can do better, but give them chances to do so anyway because it's better to err in judgement on the side of being too trusting than to run the risk of making someone's life worst than it had to be. His time as the Inquisitor gives him these deep-set worry lines because he has a permafrown of either sadness, disappointment or anger of the "HOW do you hurt people like that! How do you indenture yourself to a Tevinter magister/ rip open the sky/ use demon summoning and blood sacrifices/ any other of the myriad shittiness one encounters during Inquisition! You can't DO that!" variety. He's super furious about all the injustice and evil he's witnessed and I think of him as just a very tired person trying to do the best he can for everyone. I love him so much. Smol sad frowny elf of my heart.
Okay so I was hit with so many feelings and thoughts about my Quizzie today while talking to my moirail. I was thinking about her post game (refresher, this is my Dalish mage, Cullenmancer Renwyn). And mostly I was thinking about her and Cullen. I've kinda soured on him as a character because I don't like a lot of his more intense fans and because I think Bioware dropped the ball quite a bit on his character. Don't get me wrong, I still like him, I like his romance, but it takes a lot of headcanoning in how he deals with a mage Quizzie to keep my investment in him. I mean, this is Cullen "Mages aren't people like you and me" Rutherford. I think his character development happened too offscreen for me. Basically, I wish he were more problematic in his views on mages. I wish we got to see him struggle with it more, particularly in a romance with a mage Quizzie. Bringing this back around to Ren, she and Cullen hit a rocky point post-Trespasser. For the first time, Ren has some sort of life expectancy. She and Cullen stay with his family for a little while, in which they have their first real fight. Cullen made an off hand comment about how he's worried about the college of enchanters because so many mages are there without any templar oversight. Ren gets understandably upset by this, because she's a fucking mage. Cullen hedges and basically pulls a, "but you're not dangerous like them." This doesn't go over well. Ren holds a handful of lightning to his throat saying he'd better remember that she's incredibly dangerous. They don't talk for about a week and Cullen does some deep thinking about his prejudices and apologizes. But things are still weird. The Inquisition has been disbanded, and Ren's in a slight existential panic because of the revelations about Dalish history and religion in Trespasser. Cullen wants to help, but he's just not that good at it, because he's a Chantry boy and doesn't know how to be supportive. He's also in a bit of a state because for the first time in his life, he doesn't have a clear direction. He was against the Inquisition disbanding and was shocked when Ren and Sander disbanded it. So he's catching up with his family and sort of thinks that he and Ren will retire and maybe have a few children now, though the thought of not being a part of an organization like the Templars or Inquisition is terrifying for him. Ren on the other hand has no intention of going into retirement. She can't keep what Solas told her about the Dalish to herself. Her people deserve to know. They deserve better than to serve him. So she decides she's going to become a Wandering Keeper (not a canon term, but a headcanon about the Dalish that I really like) and spread what Solas told her. She wants to give her people a choice, and to emphasize that if they want to keep their Vallaslin and their ways, that's a fine choice. It has become something beautiful. But Ren will not keep the truth from her people. She removes her own Vallaslin to Falon'Din and gets a new one of her own design when she officially becomes a Keeper. Now she's waiting for her friend and mentor (Solas) to show himself so she can save him. So where's Cullen in all this? That's the problem. He doesn't have a place in her life right now. Even if he were going to come along to be the loving and supportive husband, his presence would do more harm than good. So I'm not sure what happens. Do they have sort of a Han and Leia from TFA relationship, where they've drifted apart despite their genuine love for each other? Or do they carry on, and still share a strong and healthy love despite only rarely getting to be together? These are the thoughts I'm pondering... Wow that got long o.o
@Kittenly I like your thoughts and wish to subscribe to your newsletter. OuO Fraught relationships are my jam, and I really like the direction you've taken your Inq's relationship with Cullen. And I very much agree with your thoughts re: his character development. It was a nice surprised he'd gone from "I'm gonna kick this guy down a flight of stairs" in DA2 to someone I genuinely liked in DAI... but it's frustrating that it just HAPPENED, rather than us getting to see any of it, and now we have to backfill it all ourselves. :T
Eee! Th-thank you Senpai! *.* CULLEN RAMBLES TIME: Yeah. I honestly wish they had given the lyrium addiction to someone else in favor of having Cullen still dealing with his conflicts about mages. Like maybe give it to Ser Baris? Or else have Cullen be a much more heavily focused on character than he is. Which... ehh. The fact that he's in Inq at all is p much because he's always been a fan favorite since Origins, so giving him even /more/ focus would have seemed like too much. Especially since he's the pretty white, straight boy, and DA is doing a lot to have POC, women, and queer characters have big spotlight roles. But if we were gonna give Cullen all the character development he deserves, I want someone who is angrier and more confused. Because the poor guy is dealing with a horrible addiction on top of having his world views constantly being challenged and being thrust into a role he is so not qualified for. Side note: I really like the idea that Cass chose Cullen because originally the Inq was gonna be a small force under Justinia, and his role would be much more like Knight Commander than general. I wish he'd struggled more, because honestly, he was way too successful as a general despite being ridiculously under qualified. As for post Inq, I like the idea of him basically forming a halfway home for ex-templars. Though I don't know if he'd come up with it on his own. Cullen is about DOING things and fighting things, and it's a huge shift to a place where he is taking care of broken people. I think it's really telling and true to the character that Cullen /can/ end up a wreck on the streets, where he basically dies an early death because he needs structure and can't ask for help. So post-Trespasser, he and Ren are really at a loss. They've failed to address their big differences because with the threat of everything in Inq, they didn't matter as much. But with the whole future ahead, they need to TALK. Like Cullen sort of assumes they'll have kids. And Ren's like, you want me to push what out of my what?? Also, they're technically married, but Ren didn't ever expect to get married (even when she was happy with Cullen) and really only agreed because she thought she was about to die and it seemed like something meaningful she could give Cullen before that happened. But they never really talked about what it would mean for them to be married.
This is whining about a certain specific part of the fandom, hence the spoiler. Spoiler: trespasser spoilers and BLUH BLUH HUGE WHINE I am so tired of people (especially human fans!!!) going on and on about how the Dalish STOLE THE SPOTLIGHT and ARE THE FOCUS OF THE ENTIRE GAME and I BOUGHT DRAGON AGE NOT ELF AGE and HUMANS NEVER GOT ANYTHING!!! Like okay, dwarf and qunari players going 'hey cool now us pls?' I'm okay with! Because qunari fans who want more Vashoth stuff and more shit dealing with the Qun as an actual threat (and not just the totally not working on our order we swear groups like the Arishock in Kirkwall and the Viddasala in Trespasser) or dwarf fans who want more lore and discussion about dwarven culture? I'm cool with that! That's a fair thing to ask, because we did get a lot of additions to the Dalish lore. (But I am a bitter baby, and remember that a lot of those additions came because there wasn't really anything in the prior games. No wonder people reacted with shock and horror at the concept of Dalish having different traditions and accused the devs of retcons to make them look bad. Our whole fucking knowledge base was like, one clan before then. Two, maybe.) And you know what? People that are like "oh my god I'm so hype for Tevinter in DA4 I hope we can play a soporati and not just an altus" or "oooooh I hope we find our more about Nevarra and Antiva and Rivain and the Avvar/Chasind"? I'm okay with that too! Because I'm interested in that, they've dropped interesting hints of what those countries/cultures are like and I want to know! But this particular brand of human fan. You know the kind-- their Cousland was the only right way to play DA:O and if you played anything else you were stupid and useless. Hawke being human-restricted was just the only thing possible and humans are inherently better anyways. Trevelyan is sooooo ignored u gais, why doesn't anyone think of the poor Humans? That fan? I am tired of seeing that fan say things like "UGH THERE WAS TOOOOO MUCH FOCUS ON THE DALISH" (The Well at the temple of Mythal and Trespasser. That's it, not counting sidequests.) and "UGH THERE WAS NO HUMANS STUFF AT ALL" (Orlais! Orlais as a fucking whole. And ofc there was the Redcliffe/Therifal Redoubt, where you either had nobles directly helping you or a chance to encounter the ruler of Fereldan. And actually, let's back up a little bit: You go to the fucking Winter Palace to save/meet the Empress of Orlais. One of your companions is a Tevinter noble on the run. Another is a high ranking mage from Orlais. Another is in line for the Nevarran royalty.) and "THERES SOOOOO MUCH DALISH GODS UGHHHHH" (Hi I'm sorry did u miss the part where you are the Herald of Andraste? What about the part where you directly involve yourself with the Chantry and Templar/Mage rebellion? The part where you pick the next Divine?) and "THE BEST ROMANCE IS ELF-LOCKED UGH THE ONLY GOOD ROMANCE IS AN ELF UGH" (Solas and Sera are the only elf companions, period, first off. Solas has ramifications on the story, but not anymore so at this moment than Morrigan or Anders. Bull is Qunari. The human romances are: Cassandra, Josephine, Cullen, Blackwall, and Dorian. Both Solas and Sera are female-locks, so in fact the male romances are exclusively non-elf. So. There's that. Oh, and Cullen and Solas are tit-for-tat when it comes to fic/art, so that's nnnnnot really a good argument from that range either.) Which I guess what I'm getting at is yeah, sometimes Dalish fans are shitty. This is not because they are Dalish fans, it's because they are Bioware fans. And sometimes human fans are shitty, because they are also Bioware fans. But this fucking... this idea that somehow the humans are getting nothing compared to the elves is so??? infuriating??? Because it's wrong, and it's aggressively wrong, and the wronger it gets, the more it upsets me! And I hate it, because player-race supremacy isn't a new thing! But if you say "Yeah, the Dalish fans can be shitty, but c'mon that's not new. Remember Cousland fans?" people go "Uhhh, no? That never happened with DA:O??" Which is also wrong! And I just realized that this group of people also does the "DA:I is shit and no one appreciates how good DA:O was its the least appreciated game of them all why doesn't anyone talk about how good DA:O is?" ARGH okay i'm better now
Spoiler: :') Cousland stans are juuuust above people who call the Mage origin the Amell origin in my list of people in the fandom who aggravate me, and Trevelyan Trumpers are right at third place :') I could not physically care less about human nobles, it's one of the reasons my hawkes are fairly underdeveloped. i'm a shit elf apologist and i wanted more vashot/dwarf stuff too, they're super underdeveloped and their lore is super interesting. I wish DA4 could give either of them the same focus they gave the Dalish in DAI, i mean, both obviously have stuff to do with the fade and the veil and magic and stuff, so... i want more lore on them! and it's like. so cute when they complain the humans are ignored when so much of the game fucking orbits human culture as you said and... it was obviously written with humans first. I mean. A Dalish elf asking who is Mythal, anyone?
I won't say I'm anti-human, but... humans hold absolutely no interest for me as a playable race |DD I have yet to actually play as a human in any DA game yet (which obviously means I have not played DA2). It's just. They seem so boring to me. We see humans every day in real life! and in almost every single other video game out there! You know what we don't see as much if at all? QUNARI AND ELVES AND DWARVES give me all the non-human races plz I'll take good care of them everyone else can have their silly humans.
What a shocker, they're a Witcher 3/DAO stan. This is my surprised face. edit: and on the tumblr 'more posts like this one', we have "The Inq isn't coming back because they lost an arm and also it's meaningless for an Inq that isn't a Solasmancer." Yeah I guess I was just imagining that Dorianmancer hook, silly me.
...how are DAI or Skyrim MMORPGs. Like Do you know what that acronym stands for. Particularly the first three letters. And, yeah, Origins combat is harder, because Origins has TERRIBLE COMBAT. This is why if I ever replay it I am doing so with instakill mods. Origins also made your warden approach every situation with the same expression of grim-faced complete done-ness. I mean, a few of the gripes are legitimate (most Inquisitors really don't have a reason to care about the previous NPCs in the way that the player does f'rinstance) but most of these are just. Subjective. Yeah, you didn't like the game, so don't play it anymore and go play somewhere else in something you DO like. It is that simple!
I'm guessing they're talking about the grinding, but the thing about D:I is that unless you're 100%ing it, you don't have to grind. You can usually get mist of your stuff in passing. Elfroot for potions is the only exception, but the Skyhold garden is a decent approach to that issue. I play MMOs all the fuckin time and lemme tell you: DAI on a bad day is still leagues above FFXIV and WoW and GW2 levels of collecting bear asses.
Yeah I don't think I've had to really properly grind for ANYHING in DAI. Like, that might be because I really like to collect things and finish quests so that the logs are nice and neat, but I haven't had to double back to spawn more monsters... ever? The only herb I had to grind for was Crystal Grace and that was seriously because I wanted to get the headband thing.
All games are grindy when you're trying to 100% them, I really don't know why the whiners keep singling DAI out on that. Otherwise it's one of the least grindy games I've played, especially with the Golden Nug to carry over collections. Come to think of it, I also don't know why people gripe endlessly about there being 'so many' pointless sidequests - DAO was PLENTY bad about that, itself.
And also. Look at Orzammar, look how the plot is set up so that if you take your companion's advice you might have to stop a main questline in the middle to go complete another one then come back, or the stuff with currying favor with the ferelden leaders (I did not know that that many sidequests to win people's favors existed, and for my money the debating choices when you're arguing with Loghain could've come from the court approval part of Halamshiral), and all sorts of hurrying-along plot details (like how unless you're a dwarf then you're essentially flipping a coin on who to make the monarch, and getting no idea what either king is LIKE.)
