*insert all my salt about Tumblrites who equate choices in Dragon Age with real world issues and minorities here*
I can't even manage to play a character who would side with the templars, haha. It doesn't help that the whole leadup is so clunkily written (the fault of short development time, I know, but bluh) - so I either would have to make Hawke take the idiot ball, or play a Hawke who'd be the kind of asshole I wouldn't be able to have fun playing. Also Spoiler: da2 spoilers I can't bring myself to kill Anders because it's SO ANTICLIMACTIC - Hawke just makes a >:C face, jabs a knife in Anders' back, and stomps off. They seem more annoyed than anything, which is really weird and boring for someone who had any strong emotions for Anders at all, especially for a Hawke who was in a romance with him. It helps that it pisses Sebastian off if you don't kill Anders just because he stomped his foot and demanded it.
Sebastian can eat my whole entire ass I also can't bring myself to side with the templars in DAO and DA2. in DAI i can... sorta? play the kind of character that would side with them, i guess? but it's not a choice i like to make. Spoiler I have never even once killed anders because after Ser Alrik and Act 3 in its entirety i am, more often than not, in a "Anders is right and the Chantry is shit!" mindset lmfao but i hope i dont have to explain the two hundred and seven bones i have to pick with the Chantry
I picked the Templars the first time I played DA2, but I don't think it's an action I would do again. DA:I is a little different, because you've got branching paths for whichever way you want to go with it, but it does frustrate me sometimes that I either get to pick Mages (and old characters who people have connections with but I don't) or Templars (and new characters with their own unique spin on the situation.)
....there's old characters to have connections with on the mage path? I guess there's Fiona but she's barely in it...
In DAI the choices are less in the vein of "mass murder" and "cold blooded wholesale slaughter" at first, so it's understandable that the right character would not trust the mages who are serving Tevinter, or a character who doesn't trust magic would go to the templars, or someone more pragmatic would consider it easier to go to the templars; there's reasons to go to them other than 'i am super okay with murdering a bunch of desperate people'. Buuut I tend to play Dalish characters and Vashot mages, so uh, not the kind who would be cool with Templars. My only playthrough in which i actually plan to do that quest is with my Cadash, eventually. And my terrible trevelyan.
....oh yeah, that guy's here? Honestly I didn't remember him at ALL when I played. He might as well have been a completely new guy.
I wish they'd just made Calpernia the general for both routes, she's way more compelling than the greasy burnout is. >_>
I kinda like the idea of Samson, but like a lot of things in inquisition, he could have been handled better. And I wish we'd had to fight both generals, because I really want to meet calpernia >.>
Her nemesis quests are SO COOL, they're way more involved than Samson's, and you get some interesting Corypheus backstory. Aaaand Spoiler: calpernia spoilers If you've collected enough evidence, you can turn her against Corypheus when you confront her at the Temple of Mythal.
Everything I hear about her is so tempting but *makes distress noises at having to play as a rogue and also at busted memory thing on PC that cut my ram in half* I have seen a bit of her story because I don't mind spoilers, but there's nothing like meeting a character in the game personally, isn't it true? And I still want to put her in my fic.
I still need to finish a playthrough where I pick the templars so I can see that final bit for myself. :')
:') I had gone as far as Crestwood with my Templar-siding Qunari warrior, and then I got Trespasser and found out the end of the Dorian romance and lost all my willpower do continue playing that dude, and then I accidentally deleted the poor dear. I remade him for pictures and because I love my gentle big son with his ridiculous name, but eeeeeh. Playing as dudes is just not that appealing. I haven't touched the Petra Cadash playthrough for literal years in any serious fashion because I'm too focused on taking a billion pictures of five hundred different ocs, and she is the only hope I have of choosing the Templars.
I get that. In all honesty, I haven't actually played a pro templar Hawke in game >.> I mostly have her for world state and an rp with a friend. I liked that I could justify having a pro mage going to the templars in DAI, basically, she was just way more concerned with templars than the mages because she's been hurt personally by templars before. Spoiler: da2 spoilers Agreed. Like most important, emotional bits of da2, I have that scene written out in a little ficlet, because it needed so much more, especially because she was an Andersmancer.
I really dug the combat and the character development in da2. My playthrough was some time ago, so the details are fuzzy. My computer could barEly run da2 so I never picked up Inquisiton Spoiler: da2 - goddamnit Anders My Hawke saw what Anders up to but decided to help him anyway, because he couldn't let his boyfriend go off and do something that stupid and dangerous by himself. He was caught off guard by the scope of the act, but in the end he had to forgive him because he was a sentimental fool. That climax was a good rp time, A+.