#da 2 has fenris

[lufdraws]

hawke’s favor 🥀

[suppenzeit]

I know there's no form And no labels to put on To this thing we keep And dip into when we need

[flowersbane]

someone needs to study my obsession with romancing anyone whose anti-mage as a mage

thought i’d romance zevran in origins, ended up wanting to romance alistair as soon as i learned he was a former templar

thought i’d romance anders in 2, ended up dead set on romancing fenris when he started talking about how much he hated mages

the only reason i didn’t romance cullen was because i was so smitten with solas

(i should’ve romanced cullen)

like, seriously, tho, as soon as the title “mage killer” came up under lucanis’s name, the urge to romance him surged through me like a need

send help fr

[moosu]

Los wiwis <3

[shadow-kid-cole]

hello friends i wanted to ask for help from those with a better memory for lore/details from the games than i have. a friend of mine is doing a presentation party soon, and i want to do mine on da2 - why my favorite game kind of sucks and how i’d fix it lmao i’ve got a lot of ideas and have been replaying it to find extra details, but my memory isn’t great and i know there’s a lot of great meta posts about it on here, so i wanted to give y’all a chance to chime in! what are some things you think i should include? what are your favorite or least favorite aspects of the game? what parts are really cool and what parts do you hate? specific examples of scenes/quests/dialogue would help - also, if you know of any posts or anything else that have this type of info, send them my way! i love da2 and i’m very excited to talk about the game that it is and also the game that it could have been, so i want to be sure i have enough for it to make sense!

[executivenerd]

I'm interested to see what everybody's favorite companions are!

[pebsterino]

Lara doodles!!

I’m testing out my new tablet and i love it so much already! T_T its so much fun to draw!

[somanyfandomsomfg]

If Fenris and Cole met (and actually engaged in conversation, which would be hard considering Fenris' views on spirits but y'know) I think Fenris would be dead like 3 minutes into the conversation bc he would 100% call original Cole's death "the lesser of two evils"

[paarthursass]

every dragon age day has seemed dull since the day greg ell/is imploded on twitter and youtube.  nothing beats the high of the entire fandom + writers on twitter teaming up to clown on that man.  nowadays we just get cinematics full of info we already know.  sad. 

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

If nothing else, Dragon Age 2 is a story being told by Varric Tethras (pulp novelist, businessman, and self professed liar), while being interrogated by the Chantry secret police, while also trying to exonerate himself and the best friend he loves...

It could be true, some of it could be true, none of it could be true. Likely it is only half of the picture and the story and its players are Varric's Cassandra friendly version. There's room for so many interpretations of DA2 that I wonder how anyone comes to a single truth about the story and its characters at all?

Anyway, I've been thinking about a post that said taking a side strictly for or against Anders misses the point and I agree. However, I think because DA2 is too structuralist in its approach to the characters, players clung more to a humanistic reading of them. Ideally a story balances both but it didn't in DA2 and so the characters feel puppeted by a thesis that could be alienating at times. I mean, Anders isn't 'right' but he is more right then the story and the general response to his character allows him to be and so anyone with a grasp on the metaphors the DA mages represent, from religious and political persecution of queerness to authoritarian imprisonment, are going to see any attempt to justify the continued abuse of them as awful. They'll also cling harder to the character who represents resistance to *gestures at all that narrative mess*. Same with Fenris. Who is the bluntest fictional embodying of slavery ever. Right to the heart, really. Of course people cling to Fenris. Especially in an American story. (And then they pitted them against each other...)

As for characterization, though, they're assholes. I love them. I get them. I'd like them even if they were worse (and the criticism does tend to exaggerate how bad they are). They are in pain and have a lot of room for growth but they are assholes. Yet they're also flawless to me and that there's my point. The story didn't utilise them as it should, didn't think about them as much beyond being a blunt tool for the plot and so the players who felt the metaphors, who identified with their pain, plucked them away, filled them in, and shielded them from a narrative and public they felt misused or misunderstood them and by extension the people and issues they represent.

We're always saying here that representation is important but this is the reason why. This is the power it has and the pain it can cause when fumbled. This is why there was such a strongly divisive response to Anders— you had one side gleefully feeling justified killing him and all he represents and the other side feeling horror at how all he represents was handled and wanting to save him. This is why there's still Anders vs. Fenris drama years later despite them being mirrors, the story reduced them to being a mouthpiece for and against mages when the plot itself is about the rights of mages. It's a bit impossible to talk about the narrative of DA2 without talking about Anders and Fenris.

So I get it but on the other hand DA2 is a story being told under duress by an unreliable narrator. All the characters could be the way they are because Varric needs them to be in order to satisfy the magic fearing religious government. I think that could be a really interesting conversation to have too.

[bleeding-star-heart]

Starheart's favorite new crack headcanon

So...Varric is a liar, yes? That's canon. Meaning, anything he says in DA:2 to Cassandra is up for debate. Up to and including key details about the companions. Thus, I've been thinking about how I really hate Sebastian's Chantry vs. Starkhaven dilemma. It makes no damn sense in the context of what we're told about the situation in Starkhaven. Between how heavily it's implied that Goran Vael is intellectually disabled-and that Lady Harriman has been exploiting that to control Starkhaven- which in turn results in the nobles plotting civil war-staying in the Chantry is both irresponsible and shameful. (I am in no way implying that Goran's ID automatically makes him a bad ruler; I am merely saying that Goran likely does not have the right support system in place and at the very least Sebastian needs to talk about next steps with the guy) Thus, my new super-crack headcanon is that Varric greatly exaggerated Sebastian's commitment/devotion to the Chantry. Sebastian is still deeply religious, mind you, and still very emotionally attached to Elthina. He's just not nearly as enthused about being a Chantry brother as Varric/DA:2 tells us. And the reason he did this is because Sebastian has a legitimate impediment to succeeding his parents' throne beyond random vows (which canon tells us can easily be discarded). One that Sebastian would not to be exposed to the general public, never mind the Seekers of Truth. And Varric, out of respect for Sebastian's wishes (or maybe just common decency) chose to use religiosity as a replacement for said secret impediment. Maybe the obstacle is that Sebastian is, beyond being the youngest, also not a legitimate heir. Maybe he's a royal bastard-specifically, a bastard of whichever parent sits on the throne. Which perhaps added to his parents' anxiety about him siring more bastards... Another obstacle (and this is the one I prefer) is that Sebastian is actually a mage. One who was originally supposed to go the Kirkwall Circle-but en route, his templar guardians were killed. And, Sebastian, good boy that he is, immediately ran to Elthina for help. Elthina, being the consummate politician that she is, rather than turn him in, instead kept Sebastian in the Chantry in case she ever needed to blackmail Starkhaven's royal family. And after said royal family died...well, Elthina doesn't want what she did getting out. And Sebastian has to debate the merits of being exposed versus letting Starkhaven rot. This little piece of crack also handily explains how a good Chantry never ended up reporting Merrill, Bethany, Anders, and/or possibly Hawke to the templars. How could he? They're in the same boat! (And all without the need for that particular banter between Fenris and Sebastian that I loathe with a passion).

[transandersrights]

Anders, the player, and betrayal

This actually Is (I think) an unpopular Anders opinion but I don't think his lying to you about the Chantry boom constitutes a betrayal any more than the Chantry boom itself. Ignoring the fact that I have literally seen people call any element of a romance they don't like a betrayal (ie long distance with Dorian, Morrigan's whole deal), I think people are keen to throw around the word in specific ways.

I'm going to define it like this: a betrayal means undertaking an action, either materially or verbally, that would cause harm to the person you're betraying (or the reverse, for a vital action that would prevent harm. For example, refusing to help Fenris get rid of Danarius would be a betrayal). By that definition, the Chantry boom is a betrayal if it would harm or result in harm to Hawke.

The Chantry boom does not physically target Hawke, or anyone other than those in the Chantry at the time - which is very few people. So it's not a direct betrayal. It does, however, threaten Hawke with harm to the extent that Hawke would inevitably be involved in the conflict that follows - if Hawke is a mage, it puts them in harm's way, and if Bethany is alive and in the Circle then it puts Hawke's family at risk. However, this is the action that Anders/Handers fans are most likely to say is not betrayal. I'll get into that later.

On the other hand, there's the lying to Hawke bit. Because Anders does intentionally deceive Hawke… but not to their detriment. It is Hawke's lack of knowledge of the Chantry boom that means they're not also immediately singled out for execution like Anders is after the boom. If Hawke sides with the Templars, it is their lack of knowledge that can allow them to become Viscount. When Anders lies to Hawke, it's not to their loss. It doesn't put them at risk. It is, by some definition, the opposite of betrayal, because the only way that knowing can benefit them is either preparing for it (and Hawke should be preparing for things to go tits up anyway, considering the events of Act 3) or preventing it from happening in the first place (impossible, in the framework of the game - because we always have to remember when considering DA characters that they're just that: characters, constrained by the fact that the game has a single end point. Even if you don't buy that, the point of this post is the distinction drawn between the boom and Anders lying about it, so if you want to have the option to stop him then this isn't directed at you lmao).

So here, we reach the point: the Chantry boom is, by a pretty reasonable reckoning, more of a betrayal of Hawke than lying about it is. The former endangers Hawke; the latter protects them. When Anders lied, he was acting in Hawke's best interests. The distinction I'm specifically drawing here is: 1 - if you do something bad to someone and never tell them, it's betrayal 2 - if you do something good to them and never tell them, it's not betrayal 3 - if you do something good and tell them, it's not betrayal 4 - if you do something bad and tell them, it's betrayal

If the Chantry boom is seen as a bad action towards Hawke, then it is always bad, no matter when Anders tells them. If the Chantry boom is not bad, then telling or not telling them makes no difference to whether it's bad or not. If you lie about a good thing, it's still a good thing!

At worst, Anders’ lies are an intentional deception for a Hawke who he doesn’t even like. They’re not a lack of trust, they’re an act of mercy. Anders looks at Hawke and doesn’t want them tarred with the same brush as him; he doesn’t have a way out, but maybe they do. So: why do people say that Anders' lies are a betrayal? The reason I usually see is that he should have trusted them, but Anders has a canon answer to that very question: he did. The lies were for Hawke's benefit. He trusted them to do whatever they saw fit in response to the boom, but didn't want to see them lose out from a choice they wouldn't be able to sway him from. (Also, it's not like he's subtle about what he's doing. The rails the game puts the player on are not Anders' characterisation - if anything, they're Hawke's.)

The other thing I see people say is that Anders should have given them the choice to support or reject him before he did it. But it's not actually a choice that involves Hawke specifically. Why don't people frame Anders' decision as a betrayal of the other people in the party? Or of the entire city of Kirkwall? Plenty of writing surrounding the end of the game or after it is happy to do that, but that's also linked with seeing the boom as a bad thing. Again; they're not separable elements in that framework.

The one exception here is that I think it’s reasonable to say that your Hawke might feel betrayed by Anders’ actions when he lied to them. They’re in the thick of it, they have the ultimate perspective on how they would react to him telling the truth. But the player is not Hawke, and it’s the player who tends to talk about how Anders made them feel by lying.

This is potentially going to sound a little uncharitable, but at the end of the day, I think that the dislike of Anders’ choice not to speak to Hawke about his plans has very little to do with Hawke and everything to do with the player as an observer but also participator in the narrative. I’ve already gone into why I find it difficult to see Anders as having wronged Hawke — but he does, technically, wrong the player.

As the player, the game reveals (almost) all to us. When a character goes behind our backs, taking away our agency in a game that is, to a lot of people, meaningfully choice-based, it can feel like betrayal. Anders isn’t doing it for our benefit — he conceals his actions from a player only his writers know exists. Can you betray someone you don’t know exists by lying to them?

It isn’t Hawke who’s entitled to the knowledge of Anders’ plans; it’s the player who feels entitled to it. Anders exercises a power over the narrative that the player does not have, and the writers choose to have him do so without our input. The Chantry boom is his ultimate act of agency on more than one level, and players don’t like it. Anyway that’s my salty rant that went off in multiple directions.

Funnily enough, I started writing this with the viewpoint that I was going to argue that Anders’ actions weren’t betrayal. Instead, I want to leave you with this: it can be a betrayal, but only if you acknowledge the Chantry boom as one as well. If you think it isn’t, then he didn’t wrong anyone except your own desire to know and have a hand in everything that your allies do. One of the best things about DAII is that your companions really do have lives and wishes of their own, and wanting to be with them every step of the way just isn’t the way it works.

[titvs-androgynous]

hot take of a tactical RPG enjoyer but I like the idea of DA4 making you optimise your party better with a smaller party size because:

1. Party optimisation and rotation is a part of playing any party-based RPG, and that includes the challenges associated with it. If said challenges are well telegraphed and reflected in the party member abilities well (e.g. if during a quest you're going to fight mages, better take the Templar character rather than a warrior with low magic defences; if you're fighting a dragon, take a ranged DPS etc.) it adds an additional layer of gameplay

2. More party rotation forces you to hear opinions of more characters, not just those who agree with you (which I'm myself super guilty of, for instance never taking Fenris in DA2 and never getting his personal quest this way, so I'd like the game to force me to avoid that)

3. I'll be very surprised if we don't get an equivalent of Knight Enchanter aka the class that solves the problem of "oh no I cannot take a warrior on this mission"

4. It's new for DA but was already implemented in ME so realistically it has already been tried and tested and perhaps will be improved upon - we don't know until the game comes out

[persephoneggsy]

My canon worldstate for Dragon Age

template here, by @omgkalyppso

ages are as of 9:52 Dragon, which I'm fairly certain is the start date of The Veilguard (but I may be mistaken).

I changed the template a bit since I wasn't really sure how to word "origin" for all three girls, so I changed it to class/specialization.

Lots of misc. information under the cut bc I can't help myself:

I forgot to put it in her actual sheet because I just assumed everyone would assume this, but Fiora is married to Alistair and they rule Ferelden together.

Fiora did the ritual with Morrigan and Alistair. Her reasoning was that it would be easier for Alistair if she was there (and it was), but she was also harboring a crush on Morrigan she knew wouldn't go anywhere, so this was as close as she would get. Alistair was also aware of this, and fine with it. They already had a threesome with Isabela, after all.

Fiora's mabari is named Jorah. In universe I pretend it's the name of a storybook hero she likes. Out of universe he's named for Jorah Mormont from Game of Thrones, which I was obsessed with at the time lol.

Marian really only ever traveled with Fenris, Merrill, Carver, and Sebastian. In Act 1, before Sebastian was available, she used Isabela. She's on lukewarm to awful terms with everyone else. She kicked Anders out fairly early in Act 2.

Varric's nickname for her is "Needles" - small, sharp, and related to both sewing and healing. I wanted to use Stitches but one of Bull’s Chargers already has that name lol.

The ‘small’ part comes from the fact that Marian is 5'2'' - making her the second shortest in the DA2 group aside from Varric, the actual dwarf.

Marian's mabari is named Brick, because she found him abadoned in a pile of bricks near an unfinished house by Lothering. Out of universe, he's named for Brick from the Borderlands series, who I've always thought looked like if a mabari was human.

Hildegarde's hair was originally a chestnut brown, but interacting directly with the orb/going physically through the Fade changed it to white. She doesn't realize this until someone points it out to her fter she's named Herald of Andraste. Her eyes, already green, become a more vivid shade matching that of the Rifts. She hates these changes.

Varric's nickname for her is Bunny - she's very skittish and anxious, plus the white hair.

The mabari that Cullen finds in Orlais is named Lapin. The Orlesian who owned him named him that, so it's what he responds to. Cullen finds it amusing that Lapin means "rabbit", the animal people tend to associate with Hildegarde. He jokes that surely it was a sign from the Maker that Cullen and Hilde were meant to take him in.

Hildegarde reforms the Inquisition as Divine Victoria's peacekeeping force. She serves as Vivienne's right hand woman, dividing her time between that and helping Cullen run his clinic for lyrium-addicted templars. They live in Val Royeaux, but own homes in the now peaceful Emerald Graves and Emprise du Lion.

By the time of DA: The Veilguard, they all have children. Fiora and Alistair have a daughter named Bryce (7 years old); Marian and Sebastian have twins, Davinia and Dominic (10 years old) and Marian is currently pregnant with their third child; Hildegarde and Cullen have two children, a son named Ethan (6 years old) and a daughter named Hannelore (4 years old). They'll have three more kids after The Veilguard's story (as long as BioWare doesn't kill the Inquisitor...).

[moosu]

Soft

[tea42]

Dragon Age Thoughts: the nature of the original Vallaslin and Fenris is a Spirit, a coalescence of my theories

This in a culmination of two other theories I have had and some other information I have recently processed.

My first theory can be read here. To summarized it, the Vallaslin are ‘blood writing’. The Dalish use their own blood to make it but lyrium is the blood of the titans and I think that was the original ‘blood’ referred to. That they are lyrium and with the multiple uses of the word ‘chains’ by Flemeth to Fenris in DA2 and with Solas made me believe they are not just markings or a source of power, but are meant to tie to the marked to one of the Evanuris.

I postulated that Fenris’s markings are an original Vallaslin and were to bind him to an Elvhen god. If it was to one that was locked away when they became unbound Fenris might become in their thrall,  but my favorite for this is Fen'Harel. That his markings are so unique supports this because Solas would have removed the markings for himself first and most easily. That ‘Fenris’ means ‘little wolf’ could be a joke on his markings being for ‘the Dread Wolf’ from Danarius.

See here in the Mural of Fen’Harel removing the original Vallaslin they are blue like lyrium, like Fenris’s markings.

My other theory can be read here. This is probably the most upsetting thery I have in DA fandom. To summarize I think that the original Leto died in Danarius’s experiment and that the Markings actually bound a Spirit into mortal form in the same way that the Spirit that became Cole formed. The markings don’t actually give Fenris his unique powers. That was another lie from Danarius. He has his powers because he is like Cole.

In the Romance scene with Fenris he is overwelped with a return of his memories but then forgets them again. I think that was the same ability Cole has being exercised in a panic.

To add on to this, I think Danarius’s previous experiment may have failed for the following reasons:

1. The mortal subject was unwilling or flinched (not flinching is a enduring part of the Dalish rite)

2. The Spirit pulled was twisted from it’s purpose or went mad crossing the veil

Another source of information that makes me think the original Vallaslin was a way to make spirits/demons corporeal is Abelas. Even his name means ‘sorrow’ like a spirit/demon.

There is talk of him changing names in a codex:

‘I shed my name the day I began her service. I shed my new one again, now that she rests. I will only be known by the sorrow that cuts my heart’ 

Solas also says he hopes Abelas will find a new name.

The name of a Spirit is tied to it’s essence and/or purpose.  I think his name changing is a changing of his nature.

Also here is the concept art of Abelas/ the Sentinels of the Temple:

The Vallaslin are blue, like lyrium, like Fenris’s markings.

I think that Fenris will be in DA dreadwolf and that his nature will be revealed to him. How he handles it and what Solas does with the information I think will be determined by our choices in the previous games.

I’m going to go be melancholy about this one for a bit.