Unpopular opinion, I am sure, but I love love love the Aveline and Anders interaction.
Oh donât worry, itâs not for the reasons I usually like character interaction. Itâs not because of hidden âaww they actually care!â moments. There are none of those. There isnât any warmth or fuzziness to be found here. Rather, I like it because itâs a (mostly) well written, realistic conflict of principles.
I should start by saying this:Â Â Aveline was ready to be tolerant or even friendly towards Anders in their first interaction, and that sets an interesting stage for their later antagonism.
Aveline: I hear good things about you, Anders. Not what I expected.
Anders: From a mage, you mean.
Aveline: I didnât say that.
Anders: How else would you judge me? What else am I a shining example of?
Aveline: I donât know⌠other Fereldans lurking in Darktown? Mage or not.
Anders: You⌠have a fair point.
Hereâs the way I read this:
Aveline respects that Anders is doing good for the poor. She often will give Hawke friendship points for protecting the weak and performing acts of kindness, so it makes sense that she would appreciate that Anders does this, especially since itâs had such an effect sheâs heard about it from other people. She starts this interaction 100% ready to think of Anders as one of the Good mages, an exception, a credit to his kind. In fact, she even extends some goodwill to him in the form of asking for his counsel.
Anders isnât having it.Â
Why not? Well letâs look at the dialogue.
Aveline: I could use your consult Anders.
Anders: Bring it to Darktown, and Iâll get you a salve or something.
Aveline: What? No! I need to know some things about mages.
Aveline: Iâm a guard. Iâm the first person who has to deal with⌠trouble.
Anders: You want help killing people like me.
Aveline: Not every mage can be trusted.
Anders is actually pretty willing to admit that not every mage can be trusted in other contexts (see: his attitude towards blood mages and how he treats Merrill) but he isnât really willing to play the âOne of the Good Onesâ here.
 Aveline might be willing to give him a pass, but at this point itâs not himself personally that he cares about. He is advocating for the rights of all people like him, all mages. His goals and standards arenât about who will be nice or helpful to him anymore, theyâre focused on whatâs beneficial to mages as a group.
Aveline is not standing up for mages as a whole. And while he might grant this as an acceptable flaw in someone else (Varric or Hawke), Aveline is in a direct position of power. Less so in Act 1, but by Act 2 sheâs a captain of the guard which means that deciding not to prioritize the rights of mages means directly fucking at least a few innocents over.Â
Aveline: Youâre glaring, Anders. Is there a reason, or is it one of your moods?
Anders: Your term as captain hasnât been particularly âmage friendly.â
Aveline: Iâve only turned a handful over to the templars.
Anders: Every despot starts somewhere.
Aveline: And yet I allow an abomination to whine at me! Credit where itâs due.
By her own account, Aveline lets some mages go. Sheâs been willing to look the other way for Hawke plenty of times, so I am sure she has. But, unfortunately, if helping mages isnât something she values in particular, then ultimately sheâs an enemy to Anders. Because upholding the principles of lawfulness and order means sheâs handed âsomeâ over to the Templars. âSomeâ innocent lives who will be probably beaten, raped, killed, or made tranquil because the Gallows are really that bad.Â
(And to be clear, she hasnât done this as some sort of sacrifice to ultimately help mages or some kind of People as a whole, which Anders/Justice might have grudgingly understoodâitâs a sacrifice to maintain the status quo and the authority of the guard.)
This is acceptable to Aveline. Her principles value order and lawfulness. Some mages she can look the other way for, as long as they donât threaten the order and letting them go wonât jeopardize the guardâs authority. But some she will hand over, perhaps only to make sure the guard doesnât seem like itâs harboring apostates in a de facto Andrastian theocracy. To Aveline, who was married to a Templar and is not a mage herself, this is an acceptable sacrifice.
To Anders, who is a mage, every single one of those people handed over is a person like himself, with all the weight that he or Hawke or any of their friends has. The fact that Aveline hands over a single one of them is horrifying.
Aveline could have been helpful to Anders, the way helps Hawke or Fenris, but she supports and maintains a regime that oppresses people like him, people whom he is giving his all to fight for. So he doesnât really give a damn about her potential ability to accept him personally as one of the exceptions.Â
I guess the reason I like their interaction is that, honestly, they could have gotten along. But, Avelineâs principles value order, lawfulness, and not disrupting the established authority. Sheâs willing to momentarily look the other way in the name of helping people, but not willing to challenge the status quo. Meanwhile Andersâ entire life has necessitated him breaking and flouting the law in order to obtain a basic freedoms, and so heâs ultimately come to the conclusion that the established order must be challenged and changed, and heâs not going to compromise that for the approval of a single person.
And like, he could have swallowed all this simply to make another potential ally to wheedle over to helping a few more mages, or at least someone who was willing to be somewhat pleasant to him, but he decided it wasnât worth it.Â
In fact, heâs willing to lash out with personal insults for things Aveline did that werenât directed at him personally at all. Iâm sure she doesnât understand why, and thinks heâs just crazy. She didnât say anything about him, after all, so why is he acting like this?
I find this a realistic conflict. Sometimes someone reaches out in pure âtoleranceâ by their own standards, then the person they reached out to lashes at them, and they donât get it. They were trying to be accepting, after all, why arenât they being appreciated more? Arenât they doing their best here?Â
And then on the other end itâs âI could get this person to respect me as an individual, but all the while theyâll be working against people like me and expecting me to reassure and validate them for it.â And in the end, well, is the conditional tolerance worth it?
Itâs not personal. Not at its core. Itâs ideological. But that doesnât make the rift any less wide or less deep.Â
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