Rococo Cowboy Vampire Hunter

Like, with that quest where it’s clear she knows how bad things have gotten and now the Divine has gotten wind of it and sends her agent (hi Leliana!) to investigate. Instead of allowing her to come in and try to fix things, Elthina feeds you a scare tactics story about how the Divine will just wipe everyone out with an exalted March so you have to help her basically LIE TO THE AGENT OF THE DIVINE AND BY ASSOCIATION THE DIVINE HERSELF and make them believe these rumors are totally unsubstantiated and everything is juuuuust fiiiiine.

That’s absolute criminal fucking negligence on Elthina’s part. I don’t believe for one tiny second that she is being honest with you. I think she’s being a manipulative politician and wants your help keeping the status quo because that benefits HER. She knows the divine better than you do. This particular Divine is one of the most progressive and mage-friendly to be spoken of. And by ‘mage-friendly’ all I basically mean is that she actually acknowledges there’s waaaay too much abuse in the system and wants to fix it, which is literally the actual central and pivotal reason why the templars break off from the Chantry, Lambert writes EXACTLY THIS in his letter, he accuses her of undermining him and the order because of her 'lenience’.

Do you think that might have ANYTHING to do with why Elthina doesn’t want her involved?

Naaaaaaah.

The Chantry in Kirkwall was not a symbol of hope and faith. It was not a welcoming place a person in need could come for comfort or aid or charity. Everything about it was cold and aloof and unfeeling and disconnected from the faith it was supposed to represent and the people it was supposed to serve. It was corrupted from the inside out and the next time someone wants to cry dramatically about all the orphans they’re convinced were living in the Chantry’s basement when it exploded I’ll kindly fucking remind the that it was LIRENE and ANDERS looking out for the refugees and sick and poor and that Chantry sisters were begging for coin from people whose children were eating sawdust because they were starving to death and that by Act 3 there are multiple ambient conversations about how the number of refugees had greatly dwindled, as they’ve either found jobs or moved on by that point.

Kirkwall’s downfall is just as much on Elthina’s head as anyone else’s and she tries to manipulate you for her own ends as much as anyone else does, too. I’m tired of seeing her portrayed as some kind of saint, especially in the same breath as people spew Anders hate when she’s doing half the same shit they’re dumping hate on him for. She does just as much damage and tries to make you just as complicit in it.