it didn't sing, it didn't dance

There are two across from them, but only one is seated. An aged man in finely pressed Tevinter robes leans back in a red velvet armchair. He’s some business associate of Isabela’s husband, no doubt, and carries on an animated discussion with Luis. But Fenris is standing – hands at his sides, shoulders back. His expression is blank with endless patience.

Anders is chained to the dungeon wall in the corner. He’s all alone. He has no handler.

Isabela wants to stand and go to her friends, but she remains seated. It isn’t her place to stand.

The conversation between Luis and the Tevinter carries on. They’re worried about tariffs and taxation. They’re worried about Ansburg and the Dwarves breaking the monopoly on corn and sugar. They’re worried about the impending threat on the horizon. There, just outside the window, out on the open ocean, you can see the approaching dreadnoughts. You can see the swelling landmass of Par Vollen draw nearer every day.

Isabela shifts anxiously in her seat. In her dream, it does not occur to her that Par Vollen is across the Northern Passage, not south into Rialto Bay. She feels, looking out the window, such a sense of impending doom.

But though she wants to voice it, she can’t. She’s not here to bother the men with her foolish worries, and she’s too innocent and simple to have much to contribute to their discussion.

She’s just here to be pretty and pleasing. To support and inspire her husband with flaccid airy femininity.

The Tevinter crooks a finger and Fenris nods. He picks up a bottle of wine, and refills Isabela’s glass first, then Luis’s, then the Tevinter’s. It’s a tasteful gesture, unfailingly polite.

“You won’t find a Qarinus red this sweet again, if the Qunari take the city,” the Tevinter raises an arm and urges Luis to drink. “They don’t believe in commerce and free trade, the way the more civilised among us do.”

“And what would you have me do about that,” Luis returns with a laugh, as he takes a sip from his glass. “Buy every cask Tevinter and send it South, so at least the Fereldans and Orlesians will have a taste, should the Qunari get to the rest of us?”

“What a horror. Being stuck between those savages and a country more akin to a dog kennel… Who can say which is worse?” The Tevinter lets out a sigh and shakes his head sadly. “You know my Fenris was captured by some of the Kossith on Seheron, and then by a family of Fereldans further south? He just hasn’t been the same since.”

Fenris hangs his head apologetically. He looks so very sad. Like he genuinely wishes things were different, if only they could be.

“My Isabela was almost taken to the Qun,” Luis says, commiserating. “The mother was ready to leave for Kont-aar, when she decided to leave the daughter with me. I paid her enough coin to hire a proper coach for the journey, but I think she would have kept her daughter, if her daughter would have gone with her.

“But Isabela chose me then,” Luis announces. “She chose me over the Qun.”

Isabela shuffles uncomfortably in her seat. The wicker scratches over the bottoms of her thighs.

“My Isabela chose me once,” Luis says. “But she hasn’t been the same either, since my death.”

Isabela thinks she hasn’t chosen him since their wedding night. But she sits in still silence and wonders if she looks as apologetic as Fenris.

“I don’t expect you to buy every cask of wine in Qarinus,” the Tevinter corrects belatedly. “Better to die in the North, than flee to the South.” He raises his glass for a toast. “Should the Qunari come calling, we’ll barricade ourselves in a Minrathous wine cellar. You and your bride will both be welcome.”

there are two key dialogues to me between morrigan and wynne. the first is this one:

Wynne: I have been thinking about what you said, Morrigan. About the Circle. Morrigan: Allow me to leap to the supposition that you disagree. Wynne: Let us say that the Circle did not exist. What sort of a world would you envision for mages? Would you advocate a return to the days of the Imperium? Morrigan: I advocate nothing. Nature dictates that the strong survive, if they have the will. Wynne: So you prefer a life of hardship and fear, so long as you believe you aren't tethered and free to do as you wish. Morrigan: That is so. Wynne: But are you not here because your mother wished you to be? Morrigan: I could leave if I desired to. Wynne: Of course. It simply strikes me as odd that one who believes in such freedom has never spent any time alone and unprotected.

like it's not that wynne looks at morrigan and sees only a manipulative temptress bent on vaguely evil ends. this dialogue reads to me as tho she is fully capable of recognizing that morrigan is a) deeply naive and b) totally unprepared for the world that wynne believes eats up vulnerable young mages like her lost apprentice. i think there's also the implication here that wynne understands that flemeth is not a particularly good mother, and while she doesn't approve of killing flemeth, you can garner a whopping -5 disapproval, the highest of everyone, for letting flemeth go but telling morrigan that she's dead.

the second dialogue is this one:

Morrigan: I have spent time alone and unprotected. Wynne: I'm sorry, what? Morrigan: You said earlier that I had spent no time alone, I have. I left the wilds more than once when I was young to seek more of the world of men. Wynne: Did you return to the Wilds on your own? Or did your mother seek you out? Morrigan: She would never leave the Wilds. I returned on my own. The world of man… is dangerous. Wynne: And frightening, I imagine. Especially for someone ill-prepared for it. Morrigan: But the Circle is no place of safety. 'Tis a place of subjugation. Wynne: Is it? It is by no means perfect, I agree, but consider the alternative. At least other mages can understand our struggle. We can help each other. Morrigan: It is… something to consider, I suppose. Wynne: Well that's certainly something.

here, morrigan kind of accidentally admits that she was rattled by what wynne said to her, and while she's trying to assert her independence, what she's describing is neglect. wynne picks up on that. wynne had a community of mages who could understand her struggle. morrigan had flemeth, and flemeth let morrigan go out on her own 'ill-prepared'.

but when wynne talks to a morrigan-romancing warden, even tho morrigan's romance involves her getting extremely reluctant abt physical intimacy, wynne frames the relationship as she sees it as one where morrigan is constantly lusting after the warden — wynne says it's 'as though [morrigan] has completely forgotten there's anything of [the warden] above the waist.' and wynne also confronts morrigan about the romance:

Morrigan: You do not approve of me, do you? Wynne: You have to ask? I didn't realize I was being subtle. Morrigan: Ah, the old cat still has her claws, I see. And you also do not approve of my involvement with our stalwart Grey Warden. Wynne: You are dangerous, Morrigan. Dangerous, cunning and thoroughly deceitful. But you are beautiful, and he is young. It's a pity he doesn't know any better. Morrigan: Why, Wynne, I do believe that is the first time you have ever offered a compliment. Thank you. Wynne: Only you would take that as a compliment. Morrigan: Listen, old woman. what happens between myself and him is not your concern. You can approve or not approve as you wish, but this is one thing you cannot influence and mold to your liking. Wynne: So you say. I do hope that one day soon you will discover that neither is he. Morrigan: You mistake my intent, old cat. And you are a fool. Wynne: Am I? Well, let's hope so.

wynne was a young mage who was taken advantage of by someone w far more power than her, and it resulted in a tragedy. granted, not every warden is necessarily less vulnerable than morrigan, but every warden that has the capability to knock morrigan up will suffer none of the consequences of a pregnancy endured alone.

wynne can recognize that morrigan, for all her protestations, was ultimate a child w an inadequate protector — not unlike aneurin, whose fate she agonizes over even tho she's taking on more guilt than is necessary. but wynne connects morrigan's beauty w how dangerous wynne believes morrigan to be. morrigan at one point snipes that she 'is still young, beautiful, and my life is [her] own while [wynne is] bound to that circle', but it's clear that she feels her beauty gives her status. for wynne, it's a weapon in morrigan's arsenal.

the templar who knocked wynne up writes her an incredibly nasty letter that wynne keeps until her death. it reads:

it's a good thing we haven't spoken much since my return. anger put my mind in disarray and civility would have been damn near impossible. but it is time, and perhaps in writing, i can put into words what i find difficult to say in person. you told me you had no choice but to let them take him. tell that to yourself if you must; we both know it isn't true. you had a choice from the very start. from the moment you found out. but you withheld knowledge of my own son from me because you knew i would have found a way. you knew i would have given up the order for the both of you. so blame my love for the chantry, the templars, my vows, if it helps you live with it. maintain the fiction that you couldn't drag me down with you. pretend that you are the martyred party. i'll always know the truth: you chose your place in the circle over your own son. your belief that perfect obedience could win a mage the trust of the chantry was more precious to you than what we had. you decided to be helpless when you had a choice to fight. it wasn't your decision to make. he was mine, too. the chantry may have taken him, but you kept him from me.

and idk. i just think this is all connected.

wynne never finds out that morrigan was essentially groomed into becoming a vessel. she might have wanted an old god's power; she might have wanted some way of protecting herself from flemeth. it is nevertheless overwhelmingly clear that morrigan has zero positive associations with motherhood, and the fact that she manages to become a loving parent to kieran is always in spite of flemeth. she didn't want to be pregnant. flemeth sent her w the wardens so that she would get pregnant.

it's not rly clear why wynne kept the pregnancy if she was so concerned abt her 'place in the circle.' but she did! and it resulted in her child being forcibly taken from her by the ppl who groomed her into devastating compliance. motherhood is no less fraught for wynne than it is for morrigan.

wynne looks at the warden and morrigan and knows the consequences of reckless, ill-advised sex. but i think she's so filled w self-loathing over the circumstances of her own reckless, ill-advised sex that she can't bring herself to see that morrigan is still young and vulnerable — as she was when she was a child encountering a world she wasn't prepared for — even if wynne doesn't know the full extent of it. morrigan has to be the aggressor. morrigan has to be the liar. a male warden is simply too in the thrall of morrigan's beauty to have much agency from wynne's perspective.

if you romance alistair, she's primarily concerned that the warden is going to hurt him. he's 'inexperienced', as opposed to the warden, who can also be incredibly inexperienced??? she can even try to soften this by saying the warden won't mean to hurt alistair, but nevertheless 'there is great potential for tragedy here, for one or both of you.' and idk man it's kind of clear who she thinks will cause the tragedy and who will bear the brunt of the grief, and it's not your warden. this to me is esp raw when you consider that alistair has multiple crossroads where he can abandon the romance if not the warden altogether.

if you romance leliana as a woman, she's similarly concerned for leliana's wellbeing. tbh i don't know if there's a difference between this conversation when the warden is a man vs when the warden is a woman. i suspect, like other aspects of leliana's romance, that the f/f option was not given as much attention, presumably bc the assumption was that the player would romance leliana w a male warden.

here is where it gets particularly nasty for me: if a female warden romances zevran, wynne starts off by telling her that the sex is too loud, and then she tells her she 'questions the wisdom' of being in a relationship w someone like zevran, who is surely only in it for One Thing. like. the warden gets to stand there and listen to wynne find the most nauseatingly grandmotherly way to say, 'you're foolishly choosing to be an inconsiderate, naive slut, and that could have serious consequences for the rest of us, too.'

(grain of salt w all of this bc i rly do not know if there's different versions based on the warden's gender, but even if there aren't, it has SUCH a different tenor when wynne is speaking this way to a younger woman in a relationship with a man)

all of these conversations are ultimately leading to her primary concern, which is that love will distract the warden from their purpose. she tells the warden that love is 'selfish.' accordingly, when she later apologizes for overstepping, it's difficult for me to read it as an apology for how she spoke to the warden, mainly bc it isn't. she essentially tells the warden to enjoy while it lasts, bc it won't. sweet that it's happening, tho!