The first character I first fell in love with: Josephine! My beautiful Josie was the first to steal my heart away with her enthusiasm and experience and finesse and.. Then came Krem and Solas and Dorian.. and then Cole and Dagna and.. I love everyone in this bar! You are all my best friends! -gross cry over beer-

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Blackwall/Thom Rainier, at first I really didn’t see much in him. Then came the reveal and : oh boy! I really like how he wants redemption, how he searches for it in his own flawed way by trying desperately to be someone else before, being ultimately willing and able to face his own responsibilities and realising the only redemption he can find is as Thom. What is more I think that, despite the inherent wrongness in skirting his responsibilities, he is sincere even as he tries to be another person, this because of his ability to inspire people: he might have greatly romanticised the Grey Wardens, true, but he also understands what it means to want to better oneself and turn a mistake into something else, to want to fight for what is right, well enough to inspire them when they would have no reason to listen to him. Besides Trespasser’s epilogue for Rainier really made me think I made the right choice by not making him a warden, but telling him to be Thom and try to find redemption as himself! If you do not make him a warden he travels around comforting and counselling apprehended criminals and that is so important to me! By doing so he puts himself forward and becomes the living proof that a person can right his wrongs, sure: partially, but they can. He proves that people can be rehabilitated and contribute to society once again. By helping and trying to offer support to prisoners he becomes the living proof that two wrongs do not make one right: killing someone to make them pay for one crime just adds to the body-count, while, with time and work, people can better themselves and change, learn from their mistakes and pay for them in a way that benefits all of society. He is an assassin, true, but, in the end, he also is the one person that feels more keenly the intrinsic value of an intelligent life among your companions, and I love him for that. His very worst, horrible, mistake, in the end, put him on the road of becoming a better person.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: From what I have seen: Vivienne. Do not get me wrong: she is a beautifully written character and she has her own reasons to behave as she does; she is not malicious, but her ultimate goal is her own power. Which, I do not doubt, she feels she would use to benefit all, but she values the system in which she has power over progress and other people’s well being. She is very intelligent and an amazingly skilled politician, and as a person her character is very charming and she has undeniable virtues, still her solution for the future is re-establishing the past, which is something I do not see as feasible at all. Besides she does see herself as the one exception to the rules she stands by, which is something that makes me very uncomfortable.

The character I love that everyone else hates: Sera. I see a staggering amount of hate for her which I find unjustified. Okay: she is undeniably callow at times and she refuses to go past a very “down to earth-peasant” perspective, but that is the strength of her character! She tells you: she is there for the little people, and she is unashamedly one of them. What is more I like very much the way she is projected towards the future and wants change to happen.Alexius: he is willing to do horrible things, true, and he is a villain, but the reason behind his actions move me. I do not love him, but I really feel how heartbroken he is over Felix and given what Dorian told me about him I cannot help but feel his fall from grace as something driven by pain, which breaks my heart. I have a soft spot for fathers...

The character I used to love but don’t any longer:Corypheus. I feel that this game has made him into a staple-villain, stripping him of most of his mystery and powers, glossing over the reason behind his actions and abilities and putting him pretty soon on a spot where he has lost his war.

The character I would totally smooch: All of them? XD Nah, if I had to choose only one: Josie. Yes, I might have a problem, I know. Morrigan, which would likely turn me into a toad for it... 

The character I’d want to be like: In this game? Dagna. I want to be Dagna when I grow up. She is such a cutie and she loves to experiment so much and is so good at it! She gets payed for it too! XD I love her genius, her fantadsy, her determination and her scientific approach to a subject many told her she could never have studied. She is a true role-model.

The character I’d slap: Viddasala, if not for anything else because of the broken Elùvians you find along the way. I cannot stand to see old artefacts to be destroyed, it’s stronger than me: I shudder. I know they have studied them before smashing them, still that doesn’t change the fact that they are destroying centuries of history and something that isn’t even truly understood and this just irks me in a way few other things do. 

A pairing that I love:Too many, definitely too many. Josie/F!Adaar is just the OTP to rule them all! Solas/F!Lavellan because I like to hurt myself? Yes, I do. 

The ending is the definition of “anticlimactic”, after such a game I expected an appropriate ending and instead I got a battle that wasn’t even that hard, the only truly beautiful moment of which was seeing Morrigan in her dragon form chasing the red lirium dragon, and an end-scene far less insightful and meaningful than the “wicked Grace” match.

Under this aspect I’m disappointed. Besides Coripheus is the most unsophisticated villain I’ve ever seen, I almost felt for him as he proclaimed his imminent goodhood despite all his plans having gone south..  Dude: no! Tell me you’ll make me pay, that you’ll drag me with you in your ruin. Do not make me feel bad for you! You’ll clearly never be a god at this point.

So: underwhelming boss fight and underwhelming boss.

Still the reveal about Arlathan and Solas was beautiful and a pleasant surprise. I expected Solas to be an old elf awakened from Uthenera. I didn’t expect him to be Fen’Harel.  Besides the idea of a “god of rebellion” is good, I like the “gray” mythologies where there is no dichotomy between “good” and “bad”, but areas of grey.

And I have a new BrOTP: Felemeth and Solas. 

And: Morrigan is my love! I adore her (and will never get over the fact she wasn’t a romance option for a female warden). her behaviour as a mother is heartwarming!