I still find it genuinely fascinating how Morrigan's character gifts in DAO ends up being a simple handheld mirror and it leads to her breaking crying, while her other gifts are otherwise her mother's grimoires.
Morrigan was raised and groomed by Flemeth to be a lonely, isolated person. She had to stay to the woods, only interreact with others if it was to harm them, kill them, or bed them (highly fucked up when we meet Morrigan when she's in her early 20s). She isn't to form relationship or friendship... or personhood for herself.
We learn Flemeth intend to possess Morrigan's body later on and has been grooming her for this very purpose: to become her vessel in the future.
In DAI we learn that the soul couldn't be forced onto the unwilling.... But does that change that Flemeth specifically groomed Morrigan so she wouldn't want anything else? It's not lost to me that this cutscene happens after we learnt about the Well of Sorrows where Samson or Calperina were groomed by Corypheus with promises he did not intend to keep in order to be the vessel to the will of Mythal. Back again to the famous "it's not abuse if i ask"/"not always true."
But the other important gift for Morrigan is a mirror. And she tells you that when she was a kid she stole a beautiful mirror from a beautiful woman she saw nearby, and hid it, but once Flemeth found it out, she smashed the mirror and scolded her for taking something for herself.
Morrigan was not allowed to have anything for herself. Not even her own self reflection. She was not allowed to see herself. She was Flemeth's future vessell first. She was not allowed the personhood to perceive herself.
By gifting her a mirror, the Warden allows her to see herself for who she is. Who she wants to be. Able to look at something that reflects her desire to become her own person. Not an extention of her mother.
And i think it's even more efficient with the knowledge Morrigan then ends the game looking for ways to fix Eluvians. Those are mirrors, but not quite. She was put on this path by her mother, and is pursuing it to escape her: those are mirrors who don't show your reflection, only path forwards.
As long as Flemeth is in the picture, she steals Morrigan's self reflection, her image. She threatens Morrigan, reminding her she still Belongs To Her.
"A soul could not be forced onto the unwilling" and Morrigan being mad that "so she thinks i would have accepted such a thing?" yes my love. Because she raised you to not even see your own face as your own to own.
I do think Flemeth cared for Morrigan in some way, but she was a means to an end, the same way Kieran was supposed to be a mean to an end for Morrigan. Except Morrigan actually realized this is not the type of mother she wanted to be. Morrigan choose loving her son over becoming like her mother.
In the first three games, Morrigan still had to run from her mother. But at least she was reclaiming herself.
She was never meant to become her mother's mouthpiece, at least not that way, and i'll forever be mad about DAV for forcing her in this situation without nuance.
theartofmadeline
gummygunk
