dragon age thoughts

[jade_sabre]

so I've played through the Landsmeet, now, and I won't get to play again until next Monday probably, so now I will put on some reflective music (post about that later?) and reflect!


alert! lots and lots of meta follows. Also, my perspective on some of the following stuff might change once I beat the game; we'll see what happens.


So I'm playing through with this mage, Laemira, and she's got widely spaced eyes that I've finally come to terms with although she sucks hard at the sexy face, it is hilarious that are that crystalline blue-green? It feels so cliche to describe it that way, but while they keep changing color they are always very clear and deep and sad. Which it turns out is kind of fitting, because she is surprisingly sad! She started out (in my head) as this chipper, I'm-going-to-prove-that-mages-are-trustworthy girl, and now she's...I know she's very honest, won't kill in cold blood, and deeply concerned about ending the Blight. The character I'm ficcing in my head is currently named Elissa, although I am not particularly fond of that name (it's the default one, so I was using it as a placeholder, and it's bordering on the point where I won't be able to change it), and she is much more passionate, less calm. More teasing, less gentle.

Quark said she was surprised I hadn't gotten into a Cousland playthrough yet (I've completed both elf openings; my city elf would def. romance Leliana, while my Dalish will be all up on Zevran), and I think part of it is that I find it less...intriguing. More personal, yes--the Cousland plot is definitely the one most tied up with the main plot and its players--but your character's position is fairly straightforward--nobleman's child, skilled with a blade[/opening things your mother thought she'd locked safely away]. I mean, the elves are really fun because they're outsiders to the main plot (and because the city elf opening is horrifying--I mean, me, personally, was sitting there wanting to punch through my screen to the pixelated people on it, because that kind of shit really happens to real people and it is not okay, and the fact that the game doesn't pull its punches is--well. Awesome, in an infuriating way), and so it's all about how much you hate humans and how you choose to react to all the people you encounter because of it.

Being a mage, you're also an outsider, but you're still involved in human culture--the culture of the Chantry and the Circle. And as a mage, you're intimately tied into all the foes you face--the darkspawn were allegedly caused by your Tevinter predecessors, and every abomination you fight is a reminder of what you might become. There's so much personal canon/fanon stuff you can have when you know that your character can walk around the Fade, remembers their dreams, has been and probably will be tempted by demons in their sleep (especially as they get more powerful), has spent their whole life being watched. My characters both chose to take that distrust and work to dispell it, developing a very strong hatred of blood magic, but you could easily see how the same experience would chafe a different character and send them straight to blood magic. When the entire Circle falls to Uldred, that's not just a betrayal of your Circle family--that's a betrayal of every mage of your kind.

Also as a mage you can become a Spirit Healer and be totally badass. Which Laemira is.

Anyway, Landsmeet. The first time I played it through--well okay like the first twenty times, until Laemira finally got Loghain (I ended up having to use Morrigan to fight Loghain in order to actually beat him with any consistency, sob)--I got to the standing pretty quickly, and then after Laemira defeated Loghain, I proceeded to make what at first appeared to be EVERY WRONG DECISION EVER. I'd already promised Anora I would support her as queen--I like Anora, more on that later, but I also knew that if Alistair became king I wouldn't get to sex him anymore, more on that later too--but then Loghain surrendered, and, well, Laemira doesn't kill in cold blood. How was I to know Alistair would throw the hissy fit to end all hissy fits and then dump me? And it wasn't like she could go back on her word to Anora, a promise she had made for Alistair's benefit and at his request, never mind the fact that said hissy fit sort of confirmed the fact that Alistair is in no condition to rule without his girlfriend (in my general head canon, Queen Warden/King Alistair doesn't work like Anora/Cailan because the Warden makes Alistair be the badass king he totally could be, maybe more on that later?).

So at first I was like, ONOEZ, ALISTAIR DON'T LEAVE, THIS IS TERRIBLE. And Laemira just stood there on the screen with her sad doe eyes, and I felt horrible, and muttered things like "Come on, he's got a 50/50 chance of dying in the Joining anyway, how is that not okay" and then LO AND BEHOLD LOGHAIN LIVED.

And within about five seconds of talking to him as a companion I realized that this is Laemira's canon. Yes, she loves Alistair in her own, quiet way, but she is a woman of her word, and Loghain strikes her as a man who lost his center, something which characterizes all her companions. Granted, the results of his attempts to latch onto something new were completely disastrous and horrible, but it's not like he's walking away free--she, of all people, knows what it means to sign your life away to the Grey Wardens with no choice, and Loghain probably had a greater knowledge of what Grey Wardens do going into it than she did.

Also I, the player, really love Loghain. He's very wry and completely honest about who he is and he loves his daughter and he's like "yeah you're better off without that whinyass bastard" and as a villain he was perfect--not driven by a need for ultimate power, but to protect his homeland from what he perceived as its greatest threat--and he was wrong, but isn't that the story of so many actual villains in the real world? I cannot give enough props to the Bioware people for his character, and the fact that he can join your party--after chasing him for half the game--blew me away with its sheer awesome.

I also love Anora--the first time I played through her rescue, I surrendered without question, because Laemira's priority would be to get the queen away to safety. Quark was like, IF YOU SAY YOU'RE THERE TO RESCUE HER, WELL, HER REACTION CHANGED MY OPINION OF HER, and I was like, well, it would be the height of dumbness to reveal her presence when she's trying to sneak out, and lo and behold, Anora betrays you, and then turns around and says IT WAS THE HEIGHT OF DUMBNESS, DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE POINT OF MY DISGUISE, and I was like, Anora, you are so badass. Yeah, she wanted to kill Alistair after his little outburst, but he was hardly behaving in a stable manner, now, was he? She wants her throne and she wants her power but she is good at what she does, and she doesn't take shit from people, and she loved Cailan's dumb little head (probably in part because he was dumb). If I can't become queen, then hell yeah, I want her on the throne.

BECAUSE ALISTAIR, as much as I love him, should not be left to rule alone. Anora pointed out something that I had been thinking for a while--sticking Alistair on the throne is just a matter of putting a figurehead of Theirin blood up to unite the country to fight the darkspawn, while what happens afterwards is...well, we'll worry about it when we get there! (Insert awesome political!angersex!Zevran/Morrigan fic.) His little I'LL TAKE THE THRONE SO I CAN KILL LOGHAIN bit sort of, um, emphasizes that fact--he needs someone with a level head and a better grasp of politics to balance him out. As a figurehead, he'll just have a bunch of banns and arls arguing about who gets to do that; married to Anora, he'll be the replacement for Cailan that he's afraid of becoming. The interesting thing about Alistair is that there's really nothing wrong with leaving him as just a Grey Warden--he's good at it, and he could easily become the head of the Order in Ferelden, and that would be a satisfying arc for him. Would it be as fantastic as him going from being happy little nobody in the Grey Wardens to strong king of Ferelden? No, but as previously mentioned, I don't think he can reach "strong king of Ferelden" without someone willing to push him to be that strong king, fight off those who would shunt him aside, and love and support him through the trials.

And well. If you're a mage, you can't do that. Which brings me to my last point: namely, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT.

See, I knew that as a mage, I couldn't romance King Alistair. I'd had a bad feeling about it, and then Eamon was like I KNOW, WE'LL MAKE ALISTAIR KING and I was like ooooooooooooooooooooooh that's not going to end well for me, because I'm a mage!

But I thought it would be, well, because I'm a mage. Not because I'm not of noble blood (psh, he could just give me a bann or an arl, it's not like half the nobles aren't dead defending their lands, and it worked for Loghain and Anora!), and not because I'm tainted (um, so is the Cousland GW, and yet that apparently is only cited as a fact, not as a deterrent), but because I could theoretically become an abomination at any point in time and that would be REALLY REALLY BAD and no one would ever get behind a mage as queen and the Chantry and the templars would have a fit (the latter making me think, hey, Alistair's got templar training, surely he could handle it if is wife suddenly sprouted an extra skull or whatever). BEING A MAGE HAS SO MANY INTERESTING THINGS TIED TO IT, but Alistair dumps me because we can't have babies? What?

Dammit, now I have to write fic, if only to make that more interesting. I was so pissed off at that point--like, I don't mind the game screwing me over in romance, because that's new and different, but I've been screwed over by a game already this summer (Mask of the Betrayer--the "heroic" ending I got basically ended up severing Laura from Hoar forever and earning her glory and a heroic reputation, both of which are things she hates, and it was the most depressing ending ever) over something stupid (failing to actually find the Wells of Lurue, I WILL BE REVENGED BEFORE THE SUMMER IS OUT), and so to be screwed over in this fashion over something that stretches over into the happy King Alistair romance plot was like kicking my poor little RPG-playing puppy while I was down.

SO BASICALLY, IN SUMMARY: I love this game, a lot, because it gives me so many options and so many things to think about and doodle with in my brain (and Zevran! I...think I love him more than Alistair. My feelings towards Alistair are complicated these days, as you um. Might have noticed), and because it's really, really good at sucking you in and making you feel a part of what's going on, and I should probably just hurry up and join the fandom and post these thoughts, which have probably been said before, in one of their comms, shouldn't I. OH WELL. I HAVE COUSINS TO BABYSIT AND AN ARCHDEMON TO DEFEAT AND FIC TO BETA. Time to go to bed.

Comments

more later 'cause i'm about to go to sleep

[jakia.livejournal.com]

I will respond more to this later after I've had a chance to sleep but first:

1. The Cousland origin was the first one I played, and I really, really love the family they give. Bioware went all out to get you a family you really care about and---give it a try?

2. Now that you've beaten the game, you should play again and HARDEN ALISTAIR. You have to pick certain dialogues to do this, but he starts thinking for himself and turns out to be a pretty good King by himself. He and Anora together are the best, but he does well on his own IF HE'S HARDENED. that part is important.

3. I hated Anora at first because she betrayed me like three times. >.< But I've grown to like her a lot so idk. I ship her with Fergus (Cousland bro) like mad.

4. I still love my mages, though. Both human origins are my favorites.

5. I was never crazy about the elves. It felt like they were trying too hard, idk. After the origin the only special dialogue you get is where you are all like "KILL ALL HUMANS." i want to be an elf that doesn't kill all humans but it doesn't let me really >.<

6. I want both Loghain and Alistair in my party. >.> Silly game not letting me have that. I love the conversations with Loghain, but but Alistair! I CAN'T JUST ABANDON HIM, OKAY?

7. yes you need to write fic right now because I need more to read.

also, kink_meme y/y/y?

THIS IS THE FIRST COMMENT I'VE EVER WRITTEN THAT EXCEEDS THE CHARACTER LIMIT WOW

[loquaciousquark.livejournal.com]

(and Zevran! I...think I love him more than Alistair

i am not even going to lie, i literally gasped when i read that. i inhaled audibly.

And also, it's interesting that you make the delineation between Alistair ruling as king and Alistair ruling as king alongside a queen that can kick his rear in gear. I find it really interesting to consider that, since pretty much the moment I found out he was Maric's son I was pretty sure he was going to become king, and then very shortly after that I found out that the f!Cousland could marry him and rule with him, and from that point on I had King/Queen canon in my head for Lin. So the possibility of him ruling alone--it wasn't nonexistent, per se, but it was always a very...distant? possibility for me. Like, I was aware of it as an option, but I was so invested in getting the playthrough I wanted before I had to leave that I never spent much time dwelling on what would happen if he did become king alone.

And now I feel that that's informed my perception of him as a character, a little; I think maybe if I'd played a guy the first time around it might have made me less willing to put him on the throne at all, because while yes, there's a very selfish element of "Lin is the bestest ever and ilher so QUEEN TIEM," I think also that the way she came out, she has some similarities to Anora I wonder if that's why I dislike her, now that I think about it in that she's decisive and generally calm and can be a bit ruthless if she thinks it's the in the best interests for Ferelden; she's very concerned with duty and loyalty, very much a quick-to-trust, slow-to-forgive thing, especially if you'd abandoned your duty in the process. I feel like she and Alistair balance each other out, like if they ruled, she would be very much about Justice and Defense Of The Weak and Arguing With The Nobles and be all up in the court system and the laws, while he'd be actually out mingling with the people, leading the social reform and hearing petitioners and navigating the meeting-and-greeting with foreign rulers. I don't even know if this makes sense, but I think he'd rule from the bottom up while she ruled from the inside out.

Anyway, my point is that I think you're right, about him not ruling alone. I feel like in retrospect that part of the reason that I did put him on the throne was because I felt like Lin was competent enough to rule with him; I'd have to play through it to be sure, but I really think that if I'd played a male GW, I'd have probably left Anora on the throne instead. I feel like Alistair needs that emotional and political support system, at least if he's unhardened (I have no idea how I'd play through it with him hardened, as that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish). I mean, Arl Eamon's great, but he can't babysit him forever.

This is basically restating everything you said already, so NEXT POINT

As far as the writing of the mage thing: I honestly think that's just lazy/bad writing. I don't know if that scene just came at a crunch for time and they didn't have time to rerecord all of his dialogue or what, but it's apparently the same for all non-f!Couslands, regardless of race or class, and I think they just missed out on an opportunity to make the play a little more immersive. Because it is a logical reason! Mages are potential threats of abominations! And he could argue that, or that having non-humans on the throne would destabilize an already shaky Ferelden and weaken the throne, and it would undercut the support of the banns that he needs, and it just...ugh. That scene could have used a few more rewrites. It could have been so personal--you as the player made this choice for your character, and here is a consequence of it, but instead you just get a formulaic Dear John letter that doesn't even make sense; why is it so terrible to not have babies when they're a mage or elf or whatever, bad enough to end the relationship over, but it's perfectly okay and even something to joke about with a Cousland? Sloppy, sloppy writing.