#instead of just (or only) faffing about doing murder hobo stuff

[tanadrin]

god, anders and anybody who’s an apologist for him is an idiot. he should have blown up meredith, not a highly sympathetic civilian who was uninvolved in the conflict. it was a completely vicious act of political terrorism, and the fact he expresses a degree of regret after is totally out of character for someone so ideologically driven that they thought doing such a thing was a good idea in the first place. just very odd writing overall.

elthina sucks, although not in a way that makes blowing her up a rational decision. the whole “oooh, that chantry can’t take sides” is bullshit when the templar are an arm of the chantry (and nominally the circles, too). it’s the definition of chantry business, and letting civil unrest simmer bc you don’t want to be unpopular is shitty leadership.

meredith is obviously an asshole--massacring an uninvolved faction because a third party committed an act of terrorism is moronic also. basically everybody involved in the kirkwall conflict is 1) an asshole, 2) an idiot from a political standpoint (except maybe anders, since he *did* get what he wanted out of it), and 3) also kind of awkwardly written.

this includes hawke! obviously if you’re the champion of kirkwall and the second most powerful person in the city, you don’t let a power vacuum fester for three years. personally, i would send out feelers to the nobility and work on creating a second center of power; i would use my mine money and go in with my buddies on bolstering the strength of the city guard whose captain i am extremely good friends with, and then force the question of either appointing a new viscount (especially with the help of ferelden’s obviously sympathetic king!), or implementing an alternative power structure like the city council that the bureaucracy and the guard can report to.

then even if meredith does try a coup, there’s a leader with some alternate legitimacy in place, and you have the means to resist her by force of arms. yes, the templar are in theory backed up by the chantry as a whole, but the chantry leading coups in independent states is going to make other rulers very squirrely about letting the templar operate in their territory, so i think they will be reluctant to support meredith and her would-be dictatorship. plus, then i could call on the mages for support!

oh and obviously i assassinate sebastian and make friendly overtures with the other cities of the free marches. this is only mostly bc sebastian is annoying and judgemental. but also bc he’s a dogmatism who will literally invade kirkwall in DA:I if he doesn’t like the outcome of DA2. so fuck that guy!

anyway, it’s really frustrating that there’s nobody with political savvy in kirkwall. the city badly needs a vetinari. but you don’t need to be a vetinari to prevent the end of act 3 nonsense, you just need to be mildly competent as a public figure. and i wish the game would let you try!