yearning useless lesbian

never forget october 3rd.

by jiji_zizidolce

2022-11-02

Our villain, Rezaren, believes that he sees Miriam and Neb as his siblings, despite very obviously seeing them as slaves. The pervasive culture he's been brought up in assumes ownership; and so he continuously views Miriam and Neb in that lens despite the fact that he thinks he's not (better posts than this one have been made talking about this but specifically such things as: does not believe they have the right to say 'no', believing he can do whatever he wants with Nebs body/soul without consequence, wanting to take Miriam back as a tool to fulfil his dream etc.)

But Hira, who was brought up in Tevinter, left due to the Venatori and joined the inquisition is ALSO deeply affected by the culture of Tevinter and how it views elves. Hira is willing to bargain the freedom of a woman she loves, and there's something about ownership there. We don't know much about Hiras family and whether they participated in slavery, but I would argue that Hira's ability to rationalize her actions stems directly from an unconscious bias about slavery and elves.

And I think that's really interesting. It takes a lot of time and energy to break our unconscious biases. Love isn't always enough, even if the people experiencing that love (platonic, romantic like Hira or familial like Rezaren) believe that it should be, or that they're not participating in these wider cultures.