#leandra hawke

[stealingpotatoes]

ppl were asking why leandra called hawke his surname in that other post so here's an explanation <3

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[ansburg]

GAMLEN'S HOUSE

[wicclan]

Thinking about how much pressure Leandra has always placed on Hawke. It's like when Malcolm died, Leandra lost the person who took the leader / protective role of their family, and since our Hawke was the eldest born before the twins and clearly would eventually be as powerful if not more than him, Leandra basically forced Malcolm's role onto Hawke.

So Hawke watches over the twins and Leandra, and since Leandra doesn't seem to know how to take on any blame or responsibility for their unpleasant circumstances of their life now that Malcolm is dead because of (probably mostly) shame. Exactly what her parents were worried about happening basically happened and she was stuck with 3 kids, an ocean and a country away from her old family and noble roots.

Leandra blames Hawke when the first twin dies, like immediately. Hawke just lost their sibling, same as Leandra lost her child, and Leandra's first instinct is to blame Hawke, when Hawke wasn't even near the twins and Leandra. Leandra was right there. Bethany/Carver dies while protecting Leandra.

Yet then she blames Hawke, saying "how could you let this happen?"

Later, If you take your surviving twin to the deep roads and they either die, or are saved by the Wardens, Leandra blames our Hawke yet again, despite the fact that whichever twin is still with you, gets pissed if you don't take them. They insist on going and if you relent and agree, Leandra blames you. As if you're the one still in "charge". Like you all aren't a family, with fully grown adults making their own choices now.

Then when Leandra dies, the game nearly tells you without saying outright that it's basically your fault because you're the one investigating the murders as your mom is being targeted as the next victim.

And if you weren't out galavanting through Kirkwall, making the money your now 2 person family's needs ( Gamlen doesn't count ) to keep living in your fancy mansion - you might have noticed the suspiciousness of your mom's new "boyfriend", or perhaps if you'd been one or two days faster in your investigation, you could've saved her!

The Hawke family is tragically poetic, and i hate that if you make a certain series of choices, everything that Leandra threw in Hawke's face and blamed them for...would seem true.

But I think that it also comes down to the fact that maybe actually Leandra just blames Malcolm for dying and leaving her all alone with the life they were supposed to have together - a life she doesn't know how to live without him.

She's grieving, and Malcolm is gone, but Hawke? Hawke who is supposedly the spitting image of Malcom, and very similar in personality and even power is right there. The only thing Leandra probably loves and hates and resents and adores all at once. Bitterness is all she really seems to know when Malcolm dies, and Hawke being the oldest, took the brunt of it all until Leandra herself died and left Hawke all alone with the guilt.

[flowertot-s]

i’m sorry i left, but it was for the best though it never felt right

can we pls talk about how horrifying leandra’s fate is

[greenelfdancing]

Нарешті можу показати свою роботу для артзбірника Прийдешній Шторм від команди Lunavis.

Надзвичайно трагічна історія Леандри Гоук свого часу знайшла потужний відголос. Мабуть тому я згодилась малювати саме її.

[championsandheroes]

I imagine a lot of Hawke's birthdays played out something like this. It's not fair, having a father who is a mage, and he won't even fulfill your one wish of being turned into a dragon :( Every year the anniversary rolls around I'm left absolutely baffled by how I've managed to keep this up all these years. Thank you for staying with me, for joining along the way, for your support, and for the laughs we've had!

If you want to support me, or just want to see more stuff that I do, there’s Patreon and society6. Or just reblog, comment and tag it with something fun, that helps too.

[luddlestons]

the Hawke family is going out flower-picking and Bethany is doing a GREAT job

Garrett would be all a mess too but he JUST got new boy clothes and he doesn't wanna get em dirty

[dragonagecompanions]

What if, instead of Carver or Bethany getting the blight it's Hawke? Maybe it's them? What if instead of becoming the champion they become a grey warden? How would the twins react to it? How would the twins react to Hawke asking them to kill them? If Anders isn't with them to find the Wardens so it's down to the twins to kill their older sibling? If Anders is with them how do they say goodbye? Ik for Carver it's a conflict between being glad to be out of their shadow and feeling a sense of 'It should of been me' how do the twins do as champion? Having to know what it means to be the 'Eldest Hawke' it also means carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders? I wanna know Carvers reaction more than the other three cuz ik He would finally understand that no he isn't under their shadow he's behind them as Hawke shields him from their burden but now they're not there anymore now it's just Carver who is carrying their burdens as either a single child or not

It's not a reaction of all companions just Carver, Bethany, Varric, and maybe even Leandra to the news of either Hawke's Death or being with the Wardens

Varric: he is likely about as torn up as he is for the siblings, honestly. The friendship with Hawke was early yet, and still developing. The promise was there, the foundation of something great, but...well, his own sibling problems currently eclipse most of what is going on around him.

Later, though...there is whole that will never really be filled. Kirkwall's resident story teller will always wonder.

Carver: It's his fault. He was the soldier with a soldier's training, he was the only one with any practical experience with combat. A year as a mercenary is no substitute for being a soldier in Ferelden's army, and he will never forgive himself for letting this happen. If they ask for the knife, if there is no one to offer the aid of the Grey Wardens, that last moment will be haunting. He will do it, as quick and clean as he can, but it will be a horror burnt into his soul.

Though in truth, it is not the Blight that haunts him. It is the ghost of every resentment, every unkind word. Every time he had wished, seemingly in vain, for a chance to be out from that shadow. But it is painfully bright in the sun, and as his eldest sibling is led staggering away it is only then Carver recognizes the shield of them, not the barrier, that cast it.

Kirkwall does not fare well with her angry, impulsive Champion.

Bethany: She can't heal the Blight. This is not a new fact, of course; the selfsame corruption had driven them from their familial home and land for so few could contain it. But she tries. Tries, weeping and denying the truth, until the same hands that have picked her up on her darkest days, slipped extra portions of food in lean times and been a solid shoulder in grief and as good as a second parent when she sometimes felt so alone, push her away.

There is a long way to go to get back to Kirkwall, and they both know she cannot waste her mana here.

The Wardens are a chance. It is a cruel irony that a decision she herself would resent in another life is a path she so ardently demands for her sibling. She cannot lose them, and so they must live. Bethany will do whatever she can to get her sibling to Stroud, pay whatever toll there is to make it an option. They have sheltered her for the whole of her life-- this is her time.

But if the Wardens are not an option, if they cannot reach that promised sanctuary, their final request will shatter her. Bethany cannot deny them that mercy, and her magic lulls them to gentle sleep before she stops their heart, but she will never forgive herself. The Deep Roads witness the worst of her grief, but also a metamorphosis for Malcom Hawke's only living child.

Anders finds a compatriot in his fight for the mages, as fierce a fighter against chains and circles as any he has known. Bethany Hawke is not the Champion Kirkwall needs, but she is patient and clever enough to push the city through to an unsteady peace,

When Anders and Justice finally have their stand, it is with Bethany's full knowledge and approval. Every mage they can rescue it liberated from the Gallows, and the City of Chains sees what happens when these people shall be free. The Chantry may yet stand, but the war to come will see Circles across Thedas destroyed. The chain breaker is coming, and there shall be a reckoning.

Leandra: Dead or Grey Warden, her eldest is taken from her. In the silence they leave behind, her own words - sharp from the horrible grief in their flight from Lothering- echo in the quiet hours. She had cast blame onto their shoulders, put the death of their sibling at their feet, and then given them the role of protector and path maker into Kirkwall. For a year they had carried the family through, making Gamlen's hovel a home by dint of effort borne of love.

Abd she had never given it back to them.

Leandra Hawke will live long years with that guilt. No necromancer takes her, for she does not pursue romance again. Without the steady support of her eldest, neither surviving twin can carry her through. When Kirkwall falls to Anders, no matter her child's standing, the last of the true Amells takes to her manor and becomes a home to the orphaned and unwanted children in Kirkwall. There are too many to count, but with every young face wiped clean of pain and dirt and given hope again...

She sees her eldest again. And that is enough.

(Far away from Kirkwall, set on another destiny, Corypheus finds an unexpected rival keeping the Wardens in check. They cannot save Kirkwall, but Flemeth's words were not untrue. When the magister who would be a good tries to strike down the Divine, a traitor in the ranks moves to disrupt the ritual.

And Cassandra Pentaghast, in a roundabout way, gets her Inquisitor.)

_ Mod Fereldone

[alienturnipp]

Leandra & Malcolm for @blue-eyes-white-privilege69 💞

[laniardraws]

Continuation of this

I'm once again thinking about the Hawke-Amell family

[infinityoftwo]

You’ve always made me so proud.

[stealingpotatoes]

i love getting into stuff like 12 years after it came out <3 have some da2 doodles

(commission info // kofi support!)

[jellydishes]

lying down forever with my face planted into the dirt because i am thinking of how the hawke family keeps moving forward step by step even if/when those steps shear off people one at a time until there's only one person left to carry on the name or remember why certain names bear a weight that is both dreadful and worth carrying. because grief may be love with nowhere to go but that doesn't mean it is worth less are you hearing me, the love matters,

[flashhwing]

headcanoning that Leandra met Anders before Hawke did, in the markets in Lowtown, that they struck up a little friendship going over herbs and salves, that Leandra thinks he’s just a nice young man and invites him over for dinner one day because she may not have much but it’s clear he has less, and when he gets there Hawke is just “… okay I know how I know the apostate Grey Warden deserter running an illicit clinic in Darktown. mother, how do you know —”

[anneapocalypse]

On Leandra's Last Words

Warnings: discussion of the events of "All That Remains" in DA2, including murder, gore, body horror, and the death of a parent.

So, in the past year I've played Dragon Age II, uh… four times, and in the hindsight of Inquisition, something about a certain quest stands out to me.

In the Act II main quest "All That Remains," the protagonist's mother Leandra Hawke is murdered by a serial killer, a man named Quentin who targets women with features resembling his late wife over the course of several years, and attempts to use blood magic to stitch their dismembered body parts together to recreate her. Leandra's face is the final piece, and poor Hawke has to see their mother's head with another women's eyes attached to this re-animated Frankenstein's monster. Quentin's death breaks the spell, and Leandra dies in Hawke's arms. Before she dies, Leandra comforts Hawke, telling them that she'll get to see their dead father and sibling again, and that she is proud of them.

How exactly Quentin performs this gruesome ritual isn't detailed, and for story purposes, we do not need to know. We know that he uses blood magic, that he calls demons to possess the bodies of the murdered women. This is likely how he is able to reanimate the patchwork body he reconstructs. In the battle that ensues, Hawke and their party have to kill three desire demons called "Possession of Alessa," "Possession of Ninette," and "Possession of Leandra."

What matters for the purposes of the game is that what Quentin does is unusual but basically plausible within the parameters of the universe, and a gruesome example of the more sinister capabilities of magic.

We do know that, at least in the context of Kirkwall and probably the southern Circles as a whole, Quentin's particular form of necromancy was at least somewhat novel. In a secret letter to his "friend and colleague," accompanying a delivery of forbidden books, First Enchanter Orsino writes:

Your last letter was fascinating! You have proven me wrong, once again, by doing the impossible. I shouldn't have doubted your resolve, and I hope you will keep me apprised of further progress.

Necromancy, the act of calling spirits to possess the bodies of the dead, is taboo in the south, but is not particularly groundbreaking in the grand scheme of things. Raising the dead is a common tactic for blood mages in the south. In Nevarra, necromancy is not only a highly respected school of magic, but one integral to Nevarran society and culture. It is suggested that in Tevinter, necromancy is not uncommon and may not even be considered a form of blood magic; it is Dorian's specialization and can be learned by a mage Inquisitor. So the mere act of calling spirits into the bodies of the dead, it is unlikely Orsino would have called "doing the impossible." The breakthrough seems to be that Quentin was able to Frankenstein the bodies of his victims into one, and perhaps to compel the spirits possessing them to act as one. (Orsino does the same with the bodies of dead Circle mages during the final battle, though the result is a lot uglier.)

By the time Hawke catches up with Quentin, Mharen and Ninette are long dead. That Hawke finds Ninette's dismembered hand back in Act I suggests that Quentin did not bother preserving the whole bodies of his victims, but instead took the parts he wanted and discarded the rest. Hawke finds a note in Quentin's lair about using quicklime to preserve a victim's feet, and being displeased with the texture, so we know he had means of preservation. Alessa, the woman Hawke finds kidnapped by Gascard du Puis, is also dead by the time Hawke arrives, and is named in one of the "Possessions" Hawke fights, but as her body appears to be intact, it's unclear if Quentin used any part of her body (which might just be a development oversight).

Leandra, however, is Quentin's last victim, only just taken, and it is her head Quentin uses, so when she speaks to Hawke at the very end, she appears to be alive. If Anders or Merrill have accompanied Hawke, they will remark that only Quentin's magic was keeping her alive, and apologize that they cannot help Leandra.

At this point, when we look at this scene, I find it almost certain that there is a spirit in Leandra's body at the very end.

Leandra has been beheaded. The demon possessing her body has been defeated and the mage who cast the spell is dead. By all rights, she should be dead already, and there should be no last words for Hawke to hear. Unless some other magic is at work.

I see two possibilities here.

First, we might have a situation like that of Wynne in Origins. When Wynne should otherwise have been killed by a demon during Uldred's rebellion, a spirit of faith which had followed Wynne for most of her life joined itself to her, and kept her alive. In fact, this spirit was able to keep Wynne alive for another decade, when she would send the spirit to save the life of the templar Evangeline, sacrificing her own life. While the spirit sustained Wynne's life beyond its natural end, so far as we know Wynne's own soul never left her body; the spirit came to her at the moment she would have died, and kept her alive. While a spirit can possess and animate the body of a dead person, they can't generally prevent the body from decaying (see: Justice and Kristoff's body), so I think it's safe to say based on her extended life that the real Wynne was still there.

A spirit could have come to Leandra at the moment she would have died, and sustained her just until Hawke could arrive, allowing her the chance to say goodbye.

The second possibility, which I think is as likely or more, is that Leandra is, in fact, already dead by the time Hawke arrives.

In various forms since DAII, we've seen that spirits may sometimes take the form of a person who has died, in order to carry out some sense of that individual's purpose. We have Cole the spirit taking on the form of Cole the human boy killed by templar neglect. We have the spirit who appears as Divine Justinia, guiding the Inquisitor through the Fade and helping them to regain their memories.

Hawke and Leandra seem to have a had a difficult relationship at times. Just how difficult depends on Hawke's dialogue choices and personality, and of course every player's own experience is going to color how they read Hawke's mother. In particular, Leandra seems to blame Hawke for their younger sibling's death, placing on her oldest child the responsibility for the family that might otherwise have fallen on Malcolm.

And what are Leandra's last words to Hawke? Exactly what Hawke needs to hear in that moment. That she's going to a better place. That she's proud of Hawke.

It is entirely possible that those are Leandra's own words.

I think it's also very possible they are the words of a spirit, perhaps of love or compassion. Maybe they're the words Leandra wished she could say before she died. Maybe they're simply the words the spirit knows Hawke needs to hear.

Crosspost. Originally posted on dreamwidth on 02/10/21.

[deimcs]

ALL THAT REMAINS | act 2 closing mission