#like carver as the neglected middle child. bethany as the beloved youngest who the other two resent. leandra being emotionally manipulative

[mabaris]

saw a post talking about bethany and carver and how strange their fanon characterizations are, and tumblr kept messing up and i couldn’t reblog it, so i’m making my own post with what i put in the tags

bethany and carver both hate their lives, even before they come to kirkwall. the difference is that carver blames hawke for it, while bethany blames herself. and i think some of the reason the former gets so much more meta/sympathy/etc is because self-esteem issues are a muddy and uncomfortable thing to talk about, and it’s easier to talk about carver’s issue. he has a scapegoat and a built-in success story: as soon as he strikes out on his own, he’ll be all right

i think bethany is less popular for a lot of reasons. first of all, mage seems to be a disproportionately popular class, so some people would never even meet her. also, she doesn’t make a very strong first impression. a lot of people think she’s bland so they wouldn’t be interested in keeping her in the party and getting to know more about her. because at first glance, she is the mild-mannered polite perfect daughter character. that’s who she has to be, because it averts suspicion from the templars if she follows the rules, sure, but also because it’s how she makes it up to her family for being a mage. they’ve already done so much for her without even asking; how could she possibly inconvenience them any more? she’s a burden just by existing, so she has to do everything she can, be as unobtrusive as possible, to make up for that