the reason why i think bethany and vivienne can hold strikingly similar opinions abt magic, the circle, and life more generally is bc they are both, at their core, primarily motivated by fear. and like, more than fear, it's dread.
both of them understand status as one way to protect themselves. bethany tells hawke, 'we need coin, status, smth we can hide behind. as long as we're just refugees, we're no one.' like she does straight up just say it.
vivienne's status-seeking is i think self-evident. bethany has the advantage of being temporarily embarrassed nobility, but vivienne proves that it might be more abt who you know and the wider context. having a wing in bastien's home is a privilege afforded to circle mages from montsimmard, not kirkwall â not that vivienne seems any less anxious even when she in theory has the empress of orlais' ear.
the game frames it as pure ambition, and some of it is, yeah. vivienne's a social-climber. but idk that i have that much disdain for a social-climber like vivienne when whatever safety she's afforded seems to be perpetually seconds away from vanishing.
vivienne says her mean thoughts aloud. bethany typically doesn't. i argue, tho, that both of them are demonstrating comparable levels of self-monitoring their behavior. like the panopticon lives inside of them, do u get me. some of that bleeds out into interactions w others. it feels like a constant white noise of 'be nice be nice be nice be nice.'
bethany will self-police if no one else does it for her:
Bethany: So, there's no Circle among the Dalish?
Merrill: Any child with the gift of magic is apprenticed to a Keeper... in another clan if there's no need in her own.
Bethany: That sounds nice.
Merrill: Magic is a gift of the Creators. Why wouldn't we use it?
Merrill: It just seems... wasteful for humans to lock their mages away where they can't do any good.
like maybe this is the most affirming thing bethany's ever heard abt magic. but if fenris jumps in to remind everybody that merrill's a blood mage, and thus a Bad Mage, bethany goes, 'oh. right.'
if fenris isn't there, bethany will be the one to bring up that merrill is a blood mage, albeit much more reluctantly.
she also regulates others' behavior: bethany has to frequently and verbally remind hawke to shut the fuck up. one of her more common barks is, 'we shouldn't talk here.' vivienne externalizes the control freak thing much more obviously and confidently than bethany, but while the other characters either cower or resent her to varying degrees, it's painfully clear that she's just holding everyone to the standard she holds herself.
Cole: Everything bright, roar of anger as the demon rears. No, I will not fall. No one will control me ever again.
Cole: Flash of white as the world comes back. Shaking, hollow, Harrowed, but smiling at templars to show them I'm me.
to me, vivienne gamifies logic in a way that's relatable if agonizing: if i make every single correct choice and phrase things precisely and w the ideal tone while presenting myself exactly the way i need to, then i will succeed. bc it's not abt my feelings, it's just abt facts. my feelings don't have to factor into it, bc i've run the numbers, and the numbers say you don't even have to take my word for it. look, i have a quote, even. look my argument has citations. i've made myself objective for you.
as a result, vivienne values knowledge so much. finding the lost tomes is her personal quest before the big personal quest. she impresses upon everyone over and over and over again that the need the circle fulfills is primarily abt education:
'magic is dangerous just as fire is dangerous. anyone who forgets this truth gets burned.'
'in my own experience, nothing is more deadly to a young mage than a lack of knowledge.'
'where else can mages safely learn to master their talents? we need an institution to protect and nurture magic. maker knows, magic will find neither on its own.'
bethany immediately becomes a mentor after she passes her harrowing. she enjoys teaching children, and she's particularly protective of ella. she adapts to the scholarly environment of the circle quickly â 'for the first time,' her circle route codex entry reads, 'she can study magic without watching over her shoulder.'
even before she's taken to the circle, she rly and truly seems to believe that if mages could just lay out their case for freedom, someone would listen.
Anders: The Rite of Tranquility is the whole problem. If they didn't have that to hold over us, we'd have so many more options.
Bethany: Right! If we want to fight back... or just engage in intelligent debate... they make sure we can't do it.
Anders: They're forcing our hands. There's no way to change things peacefully.
Bethany: There must be something.
Anders: If it's Tranquility or death, we have no choice but to make every confrontation a life-or-death struggle.
Bethany: I know, but... there are good people in the Circle, the Chantry. There has to be a way to reason with them.
Anders: Not if they take away your ability to reason.
in this way she differs a little from vivienne, who believes it's the circle that has to be defended â the circle is an idea (the correct one), and 'ideas cannot be dissolved.' what she and bethany share, tho, is the idea that mages have to present a cogent argument that they're not threats. the first enchanters who voted to rebel were technically following protocol, but vivienne thinks the ethical thing to have done was to have required the vote to be unanimous. she's horrified that fiona's vote was the deciding factor, and she has ZERO faith in other mages' ability to prove their trustworthiness to the average person without the structure of an institution.
vivienne talks abt the non-mages of thedas like they're less ppl capable of critical thinking and more just like. robots who have to have the correct buttons pushed or they start killing you. she holds v little disdain for the 'ordinary ppl' caught up in the mage/templar war, even as she acknowledges them as potentially v dangerous to mages.
'so many people dispossessed. another generation that learns to live in fear of magic.'
for her it's game over, start again.
she rly is most concerned abt mages being feared â if a low approval inquisitor says, 'it will take time, but people can learn not to fear magic', she gets +1 towards her becoming divine. bethany, at the end of the game when she is at her most radical, tells hawke if they side w the mages, 'a new age begins today. people will overcome their fears and find better ways to live with mages.'
for all that, both vivienne and bethany hold the opinion (at least publicly, and at least for a while) that the circle isn't so bad. bethany's circle route codex says that in spite of witnessing templar abuses, 'she supports the circle as is.' she's 'surprised at how many templars are honest andrastians.' vivienne calls the rebel templars 'renegades' who sully the name of the order, and she thinks circle abuse varies much too much to make a moral call abt it. mostly, they both seem resigned to the circle and disinterested in focusing on the bad parts.
Hawke: Happy to be out of the Circle?
Bethany: It's strange. I miss a lot, but other things . . .
vivienne says, 'and there is comfort to be had, you know, in the company of fellow mages. those born without magic will never truly understand us.'
they both hold v conventionally negative views regarding demons. vivienne has earned that perspective vividly:
Cole: A sour smell in the Tower library, rotten meat and ashes. Too quiet without the apprentices. Something crunches underfoot. Burned finger bones glitter in the ash like pearls. Ice in my veins. The archivist... what was her name?
Vivienne: Get. Out.
Cole: Why did they kill her? She was just like them!
Vivienne: They "helped" her. Just like you did. Anyone who wouldn't fight for freedom was "freed" by fire and lightning. Stay out of my thoughts demon. My memories are my own.
i think bethany's horror at orsino's blood magic is comparable here. there are ways to fight for freedom, and there are ways that render your fight immoral.
but both of them absolutely prefer to fight than not when given the opportunity â both of them have little love for hiding.
Bethany: I don't mind it so much. I don't have to hide, or worry about templars hunting me.
Bethany: It's funny. The idea of the Circle is much more terrifying than the reality of it.
the above is just resolved dread! she spends a lot of time dreading the circle, and she deals with it by wanting to do something.
'it's the templars or the darkspawn, mother. at least i'm allowed to fight darkspawn,' bethany says, and, 'better to work our way into this expedition than sit around waiting to be thrown in the gallows.'
when asked what her motivations are, vivienne answers, 'the same thing anyone gets by fighting this chaos: the chance to meet my enemy, to decide my fate. i won't wait quietly for destruction.'
after bastien dies, she approves of the inquisitor asking her if there's anything she needs help with, but she mostly just wants to handle things herself. she also approves of being told that she'll be kept busy or left to her own devices.
in general, they both have a strong adherence to duty.
Anders: You know, we're a long way from the Circle. Down here, a mage could easily slip her leash.
Bethany: I'm not leashed, Anders. I allowed this.
Anders: You gave up, you mean. Threw your life away.
Bethany: I accept what I am and act accordingly. I can pretend to be miserable if you want, but I'm not.
Anders: You don't understand the stakes.
Bethany: Well it's a good thing you're here to carry the burden.
bethany 'acts accordingly'! she's not trying to get distracted by feelings!
vivienne's approval for the sit in judgment stuff is p consistent: across the board, she'd rather recruit where possible and punish the accused directly, whether by humiliation or helping to fix what they broke, rather than handing them over to authorities outside of the inquisition, like the wardens. she wants ppl to be useful. she wants ppl held accountable. the most unforgiving she gets is approving of erimond being made tranquil, and i think that has everything to do w holding mages to a higher standard of behavior than everyone else.
that duty isn't always the most practical course of action, but they feel strongly abt it. when orsino fusses at bethany for putting herself at risk to save him the fight at the end of act 2, bethany replies, 'we had to do something! we couldn't just . . . '
similarly, vivienne will advise the inquisitor to keep moving during the attack on haven, but she approves of saving everyone â she approves if you only manage to save one person.
sometimes they're a little bit funny abt it. bethany approves if hawke v sternly tells vincento, feynriel's absent father, to make up for his neglect. vivienne approves if the inquisitor chooses to tell the newlyweds in val royeaux that happiness is tempered by duty.
but i think the most significant thing they share, esp wrt being mages, is that they see v clearly that if anything's going to change, it has to be thru the chantry. if the inquisitor tells vivienne that the circle needs to be restored, she gets +1 to her becoming divine; if she tells vivienne that mages need to be in the chantry, vivienne gets +5 to becoming divine. she greatly approves in both instances, so i think the divine points do count for smth here beyond the game mechanic. clearly, vivienne believes that a mage can reform the chantry.
and bethany, when she decides to rebel w the rest of the gallows says, 'all these years, i've tried to understand what andraste saw. why she had to lock us up. but my powers come from the maker . . . and i cannot just believe that is his will.'
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