just a very normal person

like harding is the “💕just think positive thoughts 💖🥰” girl so she can’t think about bad things because that’s hard and scary and what does it mean about her and the way people perceive her if she actually is angry all the damn time and especially at the idea that it is her fault that someone she looked up to and cared about is dead because she “didn’t take the shot.”

and neve is the classic “run from my feelings at all costs because if i let myself feel them i’ll collapse and there are too many people depending on me for that and also i’ve been in survival mode for so long that the idea of letting something slow me down or make me rest is just as terrifying as death” emotionally repressed one mixed with “i knew one day this job would kill me but i didn’t expect/should have expected varric.”

so it makes sense that neither one of them want to actually THINK about varric’s death. so when rook wakes up—clearly looking at varric’s belongings in the infirmary, upset by something—it makes sense that they’d just assume that they know (because whose first assumption is that their pal’s mind has been altered with blood magic to not know someone is dead?). and of course neither of them want to talk about it anyway because they all have to stay FOCUSED.

thinking Many Thoughts about this interaction

warden!rook and davrin going into this battle knowing one of them would probably die; both of them were probably thinking about ways to do it before the other could. wardens have this agreement that the more senior warden kills the archdemon and makes the sacrifice. how could they ask someone else to do it? which one of them had been a warden for longer?

for davrin to just assertively state that it has to be him? even though we know that he was already grieving himself, his life, his bonds? but to refuse to let the VG’s leader die, to refuse to let his friend die? davrin, who knew that wardens “have an expiration,” and who was trained as a hunter, realizing that the end goal is in sight—the ultimate quarry. yet davrin sacrifices himself not as an act of the hunt, but an act of protection—for the entire world as a whole. davrin is the personification of a good and honorable warden.

like, listen. i know it’s probably just a game mechanic thing. but it’s interesting to me that every despair demon in the game does this—single rook out. and how you encounter a lot more despair demons the worse the situation gets. and every single time, without fail, rook is their primary target.

like. the potential juiciness of it all. rook who carries regrets and despair hidden behind a smile that no one can see behind until the regret prison. rook who has to keep up a brave face as the leader so that the team doesn’t collapse because someone has to make a decision.