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the premise, in short:

what if, after anders was notably an apostate who blew up a chantry building and killed a chantry leader... people are not particularly stoked when this happens again. except even more destructively. and this time with a Heathen Elf™️ found at the scene. so, instead of seeing the prisoner as any sort of positive religious omen, (most of) the people in haven instead see her as a dangerous criminal, and react accordingly. and this starts to cause further problems. solavellan is also there eventually.

the premise, in long:

> weekes believes that Writing Romance Novels during fascism is inherently a revolutionary and useful act. as opposed to using the romance novel money to materially help people in danger

> they talk at length about how they intend for rook to be a self insert, and the lack of choices is (ostensibly) bc they assume every player wants to be a Hero™️ and self insert as rook too

> rook's entire shtick is that they're incurious about the world, and refuse to extend any empathy to someone they've decided is Bad. anyone who opposes rook is comically evil and has no depth at all

> as per weekes' worldview, fascists don't have depth or reasons to exist, they just Appear. rook's opposition is all fascists, bc they're clearly bad people, and those are super easy to identify, and everyone knows they're bad

> rook steals an ancient safehouse that could shelter hundreds of people in a crisis, and instead uses it as a cozy home base for their selected friends and no one else

> the heinous, slavery based empire that's created by conquering and subjugating the elves... is basically good, bc it has a nice middle class and the majority of the population toootally hates the slavery

> and actually every problem was the elves' fault, so they're the ones who need to apologize and abandon their religion and atone. bc of their ancestral blood libel esque sins. why did they even bother existing, when it was unnatural and a bad idea? they are repeatedly described as jewish/indigenous/roma analogues, so this is such a normal way to think about them 😁👍

> entire game has a takeaway of "never ever try to change the status quo. you can and should unleash as much violence as necessary to maintain the status quo, but any violence in pursuit of a better future is Evil and Bad and deserves eternal jail. and eternal jail is fine as long as the prisoner deserves it btw."

> weekes is a self-declared progressive ally