dragon age thoughts
Aug. 2nd, 2010 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jade_sabreso 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 withalthough 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 DEFEATAND FIC TO BETA. Time to go to bed.
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
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
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Date: 2010-08-04 02:15 am (UTC)...after lol'ing at your icon forever kay
1. I watched Quark play through the Cousland opening, and I totally agree on this point--like, she was having the conversation with her mom, and picked sassing her mom over saying "I love you" and we were like OOPS, and then later the whole family's in Fergus's room and we were like MAN, they are going all out here to--man. Man. And then she got to tell her parents she loved them right before leaving and ;_;
SO it is definitely an awesome opening and that thread of family is probably the strongest of all the origins threads woven into the plot--my point was more that, like, being a human noble is being a human noble is being a human noble. A badass one, but.
2. I CAN BELIEVE THAT p.s. does hardening him make him stop saying "this probably sounds stupid" because like that is such a turnoff. It is kind of like what Quark was saying, about how if you play thourhg with a guy, would you put Alistair on the throne? Mmmmnoprobably not. (It is--gasp!--rather like my thoughts about what KOTOR must be like if you play with a guy, and how you might react to Carth.)
3. lol that was Quark's reaction OMG SHE BETRAYED ME SO HARD SO MANY TIMES ARGH and I was like, I THINK SHE IS A TOTAL BADASS. Really? I was shipping her with Teagan. I was assuming they were having an affair based on that one early cutscene, before we learned who Teagan was. But I could see Fergus.
4. omg so good.
5. aaaaaaaaaaaaw that is sad because the city elf origin was so good.
6. GOD THAT IS HOW I FEEL. I mean it is partially a relief not to have Alistair in the party because now I don't have to fret about whether or not it's really good to keep him off the throne, but omggggggggggggggggggg he's gone and no one's heard from him siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiince and I JUST CAN'T HANDLE THAT, OKAY. HE IS ALL ALONE BRING HIM BACK. ;_;
but Loghain. Everything about him is just so wonderful. And he loves Anora so much! I JUST LOVE THEM BOTH.
7. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm here have this I haven't posted/edited it but whatevs I'll post it in another comment.
also Jak I already read almost the entire kink meme like back during school when I was really stressed and for some reason thought Zevran had green skin and didn't know he had a sexy accent and that is part of why I stuck Anora on the throne because I remember reading it being like "why would anyone ever make Anora and Alistair sleep together that doesn't even make sense" and then playing the game and being like OHSHI NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (though hardened I could see him being better suited for her but anyway).
anyway. um. my introduction to the companions of dragon age was through smut? oops.