Okay here's the JustVelanna post I promised you all the other day- I probably should have set expectations for this differently and been less vague than simply saying that I had JustVelanna thoughts because I think that may have given off the impression that I had interesting headcanons or something More like…. Positive to say- and gotten people excited and that’s… not what this is 😅
Please don't get me wrong! Conceptually JustVelanna is Very neat! My issues stem from the fact that I simply do not believe that it would have been written well. Not only because the writers at Bioware in general have a long history of anti-Indigenous racism- but also because much of the foreshadowing we get for the possibility of JustVelanna is already laying the groundwork for it to be done extremely poorly and insensitively.
For the background context, as a refresher, I'm just going to link this post from @dalishious (I'll probably be linking a few Dalishious posts throughout because the blog is a Treasure Trove for nekmewei thoughts on how things could have been hypothetically written with more thought, care, and respect given to the cultures the fictional peoples in question are being coded as, as opposed to the Dragon age writer's Virulent anti-indigenous racism. You should go buy nekm a coffee b/c he's put so much work into this shit for the past many many years).
Then we have this series of banters which sets up the main foreshadowing which lays the groundwork for the possibility of JustVelanna in the next game:
So what we're treated to is a series of banters where A Spirit of Justice, who obviously has No Context Whatsoever for what it's talking about is lecturing an Indigenous Woman about being more sympathetic to the people who have for nearly all of known history been Actively Genociding her people- and then ending with suggesting that she should be the one here to take the initiative to teach her oppressors to??? Play nicies??? Show them- Hand hold them like they're toddlers- through learning that it's not okay to hurt other people. And also that they're needlessly destroying the forest in the process. And that??? That is its idea of Justice in this situation???
Like- ok that was my very quick sum up. But I do want to break down the implications of everything being said here a bit further because the more I look at it and think about it the worse it gets- Like it's. So So much worse than I remembered.
Justice: This thing you did, the murders of those men in the forest...
Velanna: What of it?
Justice: What you did was wrong. You must make amends.
Velanna: And to whom should I make these amends? Those humans are dead, if you'll recall.
Justice: You must make amends to humans. It was your condemnation of their race that led to your folly.
"What you did was wrong" -ok so, please explain to me, how? With the background context we got from the post I linked above we know that the nearby humans were actively violently attempting to drive Velanna's clan out of the area:
Velanna: “The humans near where you met me were trying to drive my clan away. For a while, we resisted.”
Velanna: “Then they tried to burn is out. They would have destroyed the entire forest just to keep us from their farms.”
Velanna: “The others were afraid. Keeper Ilshae said that if I wanted to fight the shemlen, I would fight them alone.”
Velanna left to defend her clan from active Violence. Like okay yeah, sure, whatever, you can argue that it was motivated by vengeance or whatever, but the point still stands that the humans attacked first. And the dialog here is slightly misleading with the 'They would have destroyed the entire forest just to keep us from their farms' which could be read in bad faith to assume that the Dalish were raiding the human farms, but the WoT:v2 entry says otherwise:
"One day, the clan found themselves camping too close to a human village. The villagers, made anxious by news of roving bands of darkspawn, turned violent in their attempt to defend their territory from what they saw as a threat. They set fire to the woods where the clan had settled, determined to drive the Dalish away from their farms. The clan escaped, but lost aravels and several halla to the forest fire."
And the note you find in the Wending Wood makes it So abundantly clear that they didn't set fire to the woods because they thought Darkspawn were in there, they knew the Dalish were there, they were actively trying to drive them away.
"Kendall
The caravans can't get through the woods and the village is running low on supplies. It's that Dalish clan causing trouble again, I know it. I had my man speak to their "keeper" several months back and she (I think it was a she, you can't tell with these elves) said they'd leave for more remote parts. It looks as though they're back, likely their stupid landships blocking the roads. They're a stubborn race and more than a little dense!
I must trouble you for a favour. Go to the Wending Wood and order them to leave.
Okay so onto the 2nd banter:
Justice: Why do you believe that atonement is unnecessary?
Velanna: By the Creators! This again?
Justice: You murdered humans because you believed they had wronged you, yet they had not.
Velanna: Humans have wronged my kind plenty.
Justice: Yet they were innocent of this.
Velanna: Don't speak of what you do not understand, spirit!
"You murdered humans because you believed they had wronged you, yet they had not." and "Yet they were innocent of this." Okay so as established above- Justice is just, actively, factually incorrect here. It hasn't even attempted to get all of the facts of the situation, it has no understanding of the centuries of actively ongoing genocide the elves have faced at the hands of the humans. As if what Velanna was doing was not an attempt at defending her people from yet another act of genocide against them!
And like okay yeah- sure- I'm frustrated with Justice as a character here for thinking in such black and white terms and only considering the present moment and not the centuries of history or even the very immediate recent past that led to Velanna's actions- but things could have been salvageable if they didn't start taking a sharp turn for the worse here. Because so far Velanna has stood her ground and admitted no guilt. But then-
Justice: You are correct that I do not understand, Velanna. Help me to understand.
Velanna: (Sigh) There is... so much history between my kind and humans, Justice. Where would I begin?
Justice: You can only be responsible for your actions, your judgment. Does the same not apply to them?
Velanna: You may be right. I don't know.
Justice: And the atonement?
Velanna: I will atone when they do.
"You can only be responsible for your actions, your judgment. Does the same not apply to them?" ← Like yeah, on its own, this is fine. Within the context of the surrounding conversation though? No!!!! Please point me to where she actually judged them wrong!!! She didn't!!! You can’t!!!
"You may be right. I don't know." ← Velanna, babe, beloved, light of my goddamn life, no don't let Justice get to youuuuuuu, get your fucking fire back! I miss your stubborn indignation from the previous banters!
And then the final one- This one- This is where it just. God I want to strangle whoever wrote this and anyone else who laid eyes on it and allowed it to make its way into the final draft-
Velanna: What sort of atonement would be appropriate?
Justice: You have reconsidered, then?
Velanna: I am simply curious to hear what you think would be suitable.
Justice: Teach them. Show these humans what they are so carelessly destroying.
Velanna: And if they do not listen?
Justice: Then you have done what you could.
Velanna: It's... worth thinking about.
Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me. "Teach them. Show these humans what they are so carelessly destroying." Go take a short walk off a long cliff or however that saying goes. Do not. Do NOT tell the racialized woman- the woman who's people who have been victims of an ongoing genocide for centuries that it's Her Fucking Responsibility to teach her oppressors how to be nice and stop being racist or whatever the goddamn fuck. It should Never be expected to be the responsibility of minorities to educate the people oppressing them about why that's bad to do!
Except oh wait- ohhh wait- let's take a slightly closer look at the specific words that were chosen shall we: "Show these humans what they are so carelessly destroying." Now… Do you remember what that was from Velanna's earlier dialog with the Warden Commander? "They would have destroyed the entire forest just to keep us from their farms."
So not only is Justice telling Velanna to hand hold her oppressors into being better people to ATONE for DEFENDING her own people against said oppressors!!!!! It's not even saying that she should teach them to be… kinder to elves… to not be racist or bigoted or something. No. "Show these humans what they are so carelessly destroying."
Just go show the humans the fucking trees. Teach them the value of the goddamn forest. Once they understand that the fucking plant life matters that'll show them!!! Like. Come on man. Racist Noble S*v*ge trope much??? And even if you're putting aside the racist Noble S*v*ge trope implications of that dialog- there's still the other incredibly racist implications that the destruction of the forest matters more than the lives of the people who are at risk. Don't get me wrong- the careless disregard of nature is absolutely fucked up but why is Justice(as mouthpiece of the writers/devs) prioritizing that over the lives of the elves? (Because it's made very obvious throughout the rest of these games that they don't hold to any sort of belief system that recognizes personhood in inhuman things around them. So hey- hey man- hey- what's up with these fucking priorities?????)
It gets even worse when you start comparing it to Anders banter with Justice-
Why is it that the racialized woman is told that she needs to calm down and play nicies and atone for fighting back against her oppressors but the white guy is being lectured about he should "strike a blow against [his] oppressors" and "Ensure they can do this to no one else" AS IF THAT ISN'T EXACTLY WHAT VELANNA WAS TRYING TO FUCKING DO??
The double standards in how they are treated by Justice in Awakening are so fucking appalling to me(Though- side note- I'm not taking this as a reflection on the character of Justice so much as it is a reflection on the views of the writers, and how the writers are using Justice as a character as a mouthpiece for their very racist views).
The way the foreshadowing in Awakening sets up a potential narrative follow through for Anders and Velanna in Dragon Age II is so starkly different, and heavily informed by anti-Indigenous racism(and also misogyny TBH, yeah of course let's tell the woman to be nicer and that she needs to just calmly teach people and show them the way while you encourage the (white)man to take up arms and strike back at his oppressors! Why don't you tell her to smile more too while you're at it. Fuck Off). Like, not only would Dragon Age II have been just- an ENTIRELY different game plot-wise, given the Mage-Templar conflict was central to the game- it also would have been, inevitably, somehow, filled with even more virulent racism than it already was. And the shit they pulled with the Qunari in that game was bad enough.
Anyways if you read this whole thing thanks here's a link to support a First Nations run nonprofit in Canada or go buy Lydia-Marc a coffee like I mentioned earlier.