#davgmeta

davrin is a shepherd. and davrin is a hunter. he is a protector, and a monster-slayer. he is a dork who carves wooden models of monsters and wants to create a real bestiary. he is way too young for all this shit but also fully on board. he sang to the halla. he keeps trying to throw himself into a glorious death. he is a central character in veilguard, absolutely core to the main plot of the game. he is dalish. he is a grey warden.

and he is father to assan.

assan is important in davrin's arc, because assan, too, is a hunter and a shepherd. is a fighter and a protector. griffons are viewed as creatures born to hunt and kill darkspawn, as if that is their sole purpose, as if their very existence, their every waking moment, is not spent living their lives in the many and varied ways they do, but in this singular pursuit. the reality is far more complex than the assumption, and although assan is a dedicated, incredibly skilled hunter of darkspawn, he's also so many other things.

he's exceedingly gentle. he's noisy. he's friendly. he's silly. he cares about his family so much. he cares about davrin so much.

through assan, davrin is shown that a being can be both hunter and protector. can be both hunter and shepherd. and, through assan, davrin is thus shown that he can be both the man who was once the boy who sang to halla... and the man who took an oath to fight for the wardens.

davrin's acceptance of assan is an externalization of his acceptance of himself. it is also about assan, for him, undeniably so: he cares so much about assan, he cares so much about the griffons. but as a narrative element, assan is a character, yes, but also a representation of that arc.

but i think another lens through which to view this is: assan is both monster and charge. to davrin's shepherd, assan is the wolf and the sheep.

i'm struggling a little to differentiate these two things, so bear with me, because they are different. in the first lens, davrin sees in assan behavior that is of both a protector and a hunter. assan's actions - and davrin's growing acceptance of this duality in assan - are ways that davrin can begin to accept his own duality. this view is based around assan's behavior.

in the second lens, however, assan is both hunter and charge. he embodies these things, not through his actions, but through what he is to davrin. it is that davrin is caring for a monster, in a manner of speaking. this view is based around assan's fundamental and inviolable nature and how davrin reacts to it. namely, that davrin, monster hunter, protects the "monster" and grows to understand it.

she's brutal. she's compassionate. she's reactive. she's centered. she's in hiding. she's front and center. she's a protector. she's a killer. she's a farmer. she's a warrior

i feel like she's a being of dichotomies. it's even in her name: lace and harding

and in veilguard, she, a dwarf, gains magic. this is the ultimate dichotomy, but it's also a dichotomy-that's-not: it's a confluence, a point at which two seemingly contradictory forces meet and create a unified whole

(ppl who want to be tagged for my meta under the cut: as always, lmk if you'd like on or off this list!)

under the cut are the ppl who want to be @'d in my meta! lmk if u ever want to be added to this list btw~

varric is and has always been a man who wants people to live comfortable, happy lives. he knows it won't happen — "I fought my own brother, Daisy. Nobody said this was going to be happy story" — but that is what he wants. and as much as he tries to act as though he is ambivalent, that desire is what makes him take his crossbow and go out to fight. he is trying to protect people. to protect regular civilians. to protect mages. to protect templars. he's not going to choose sides, he is fundamentally a centrist in the mage-templar conflict: "I've got friends in the Circle and drinking buddies in the templars. All of them matter."

his desire to protect people, to not pronounce a "good" and "bad" side in conflicts, also manifests in his tendency to blame individuals rather than systems. he blames anders for turning the mage-templar tensions into a full-blown conflict. he blames meredith and anders for kirkwall. he blames bartrand and himself for the red lyrium

in dai, he is still quite the centrist. i haven't played the different versions, but i have seen people (sorry, can't remember who) say that his character changes depending on what hawke did in da2, whether they sided with the mages or the templars. that supports his characterization as a man defined by his loyalty more than his own, independent morals

cassandra found him after the events of da2 and questioned him. she threatened him, stabbed the book right in front of him — and he, frankly, did not know her at all and had no way of knowing how willing she was to follow through on her threats. she then took him with her to the conclave, only releasing him as her prisoner after the explosion at the temple of sacred ashes

but he stayed

varric had no real reason to trust cassandra. he is understandably wary of her throughout a large portion of the game. but also, varric has been — and continues to be! — deeply committed to kirkwall. that is his home. but he did not choose to return to it, instead staying in haven, then skyhold. he chose to go into battle once more. he makes light of it, but the fact is, he put himself at great risk in order to help fix the world, to seal the hole in the sky. and this prior to the inquisition realizing corypheus was at the temple. this, prior to the discovery of red lyrium — something he blames himself for — at the temple. he stayed by choice, willingly, in order to help

he avoids picking sides in conflicts, but he is deeply willing to put himself directly in harms way in order to protect people. it's an interesting dynamic! instead of being driven by a specific cause, he is driven by his desire for people to have the opportunity for a good life

then, we come to veilguard. after the events of trespasser, varric and harding went to track solas. there is more in The Missing, of course, but as usual i am not going to reference supplementary materials/canon here. but we know from veilguard's own canon that they tracked solas

the ritual begins

varric was friends with anders. and he continues to care about anders, even after everything that went down in kirkwall. and, yes, he's still angry at anders, too. but we see that he is willing to shoulder the blame for things as well, and i think he shoulders much of the blame for the mage-templar conflict igniting as it did. he is a spymaster. he bought protection for anders and for the clinic. i can't imagine there was never a point where he told himself that he should have known, that he should have been able to figure it out. that he played his cards wrong. that he pushed anders away when he shouldn't have, or reached out when he shouldn't have, or did something wrong

anders feels like something varric should've been able to stop

and, by extension, the destruction of so much of kirkwall feels like something varric should have been able to stop

and corypheus feels like something varric should've been able to stop, and keep stopped

and then, the red lyrium. as i said earlier, he blames himself for that. and it is interwoven into everything. meredith used the red lyrium. corypheus used it. the red templars used it. each red lyrium spur the inquisition sees is his fault, in his mind

we talk about solas being defined by his regrets, but i really think varric is, too. he just doesn't show it as much. he hides his regret under humor, under a seeming carelessness that defies his actions

varric will work to protect people. to try and give them a good quality of life while he's at it (thus him ending up as viscount of kirkwall!) and this is a huge part of why he pursues solas, of course. but it's not the only part of it

solas is varric's friend. and, what's more, he's a friend that varric refuses to let go of. he let go of anders, he let that friendship decay, and then he had to sit with that regret, that feeling that he could have stopped it. he refuses to make the same mistake with solas. he will try, he will not abandon solas once he stops being an easy friend, he will pursue his friend to the ends of thedas and, once there, he will reach out instead of attack

lace tries to convince him to attack, but he insists on talking to solas. even if rook says it's a bad idea, he will not be swayed. it is only when solas absolutely refuses to stop and varric can see the ritual being performed right in front of him that he truly attacks (grappling for the dagger vs. just threatening solas with bianca)

much later, rook is imprisoned in the same place that holds solas for most of the game, and there they encounter varric. whether a manifestation, a representation, a spirit taking varric's form for rook, or varric himself in some manner, i still think we can safely conclude that what this varric says is truthful to the real varric. and one of the things he tells rook is that confronting solas as he did was his choice, and that they can't take that from him

while likely a salve to rook — in time, if not in that moment — this is also so incredibly central to varric's growth over the course of this series. he has made countless choices. some of them have been the act of not choosing. but this? this was a choice, made deliberately, made consciously, made with a full awareness of the risk he was taking and a willingness to take that risk himself

he's right. rook does not get to take this from him. this is his choice. this is his final choice. and varric has always been a storyteller, and what better way to end a story than by the hero doing the right thing, taking a stand, trying his best?

this is one thing varric will not have to regret

but very simply put: what we as dragon age players know has no relationship to what the characters know, and this is explicitly intentional

as players we gain access to a wealth of specific knowledge. but even we, as players, are not given hard truth all the time - the codices throughout all the games are written with a deliberate in-world bias

like the one codex that states that sexism does not exist in thedas, and then ppl getting upset because it obviously does? well.... gestures at our world.... bet you anything you could find countless modern articles saying that sexism does not exist/does not exist anymore/does not exist here, wherever 'here' is to the writer

have your feelings about it! but i'm just saying that the codices are deliberately written with bias. DAO literally gives you different codices depending on your race. treating them as Absolute Truth is going to lead to personal frustration when they are inevitably revealed to be limited, biased, and sometimes entirely wrong

the way the crows are written and talked about through the series vs. what we hear from one single character (zevran my beloved) who remains loyal to the crows while also trying to leave them while ALSO not wanting to display vulnerability vs. what we see from (one) particular house in veilguard so many in-game years after DAO... the way qunari are written about and how variable it is ("they're monsters" vs. "they have a real culture")... the way the grey warden order is discussed... the way that knowledge and opinion of magic varies wildly... the way that certain cultures handle their mages and magic being better, but other cultures not knowing or even deliberately suppressing that knowledge...

again, ppl will have their feelings about all of this and that's fine. but using a codex or something we as players learn from a prior game/dlc to point out a seeming "retcon" is not really engaging with some of the underlying themes of these games. the biases have been confirmed repeatedly. this was a real intent right from the inception of this series

and hey, it's natural! we literally play as the warden, as hawke, as the inquisitor, and now as rook. it's hard to set aside our knowledge from prior games. but in-game, within the narrative itself, those characters don't have deep knowledge of what the other characters do/have done. hawke certainly knows of the warden, but cannot recount every battle, every codex, every conversation the warden had with people. thus, hawke cannot make use of every bit of knowledge the warden - and we as players - gained through that game. further, hawke's understanding of what the warden did is colored by biased recountings and an emphasis on certain story beats over others

in DAI, in early conversation with cassandra, she tells the inquisitor about the time she "single-handedly" slayed a dragon... and how twisted that story had become over its retellings. and, i mean, solas' everything. the evanuris. but i like referencing cassandra in this because this is something that happened in a single lifetime, yet has already grown into a fanciful tale that discounts a huge amount of what actually happened

she knows that mages helped save the day and protect the divine. we know that, too. but the world of thedas? the vast majority of those who know the story do not know that mages helped. and, again, this was within one lifetime. many who know the story were alive when the real event took place. but it doesn't matter! because they weren't there, and they're hearing about it from other people, who heard about it from other people, and so on, and at various points things were dropped or added

or: brood has had many thoughts about the crows and lucanis for a long time now

While this meta is about Lucanis and Veilguard, I need to begin with Zevran.

In DAO, Zevran takes a job he knows he cannot do. But after the Warden unexpectedly spares him, he becomes a Crow on the run—and he stays a Crow on the run for the rest of his life. It is important to consider this, and to consider that Zevran is no one in particular, not politically. He is not important to the Crows' politics or to any politics outside of that organization. Essentially, he's one of many.

Despite this, the Crows hunt him.

There is no choice for anyone to stop being a Crow, ever. It is a lifelong commitment for even the most ordinary and unremarkable (again, speaking politically, although also in terms of skill) among them. For Lucanis Dellamorte, grandson of Caterina, the current First Talon? For Lucanis Dellamorte, who has been trained and groomed to succeed Caterina? For Lucanis Dellamorte, who is uniquely skilled amongst the Crows, so much so that he got his own unique moniker and was the immediate recommendation for Rook's team?

i see, above all, a protector. in many ways, i do see a mother. but i do not see kindness, i do not see gentleness

i'm not saying that like She's Bad, Actually, rather that her approach to caring, to protecting, does not manifest as something gentle and warm and soft and kind. she is a mother, but in many ways she does not fit the motherly-goddess archetype

she is many things. an old woman. a spirit. a dragon. a warrior. a queen. a mother. a goddess. a person. blunt, coarse, mystical, mysterious, unrelenting, fanciful, sardonic, bitter, sharp, ruthless. she's angry

i think it is apt that she is depicted as a dragon. there is a conceptual brutality to dragons, profound grace mixed with unbelievable capacity for violence. she is the mother who will rend those who threaten her children apart, but she is not the mother who will gently lull those same children back to sleep after the fact

in a way, mythal's motherhood is exemplified in flemeth's motherhood of morrigan. there is, of course, a brutality to it, a cruelty, violent and destructive. but she is also clearly trying to prepare morrigan for a world that will - and does - seek to destroy her. a world that resents magic, a world that punishes women for their desires, a world that rewards love with destruction and regret. mythal - and flemeth, both separately and in the ways they are conjoined - has a great bitterness, a deep mistrust of the world, one that she tries to instill in morrigan

is it good? no! is it gentle? absolutely not! is it fucked up? it is! but all that can be true, and it can be true that she was trying to prepare morrigan. there was never any gentle motherhood to flemeth, just as there is no gentle motherhood to mythal. a strategic motherhood. a brutal, sharp, violent motherhood. a motherhood that subverts many of the conventions around the role and what type of person fulfills that role

he likes frilly cakes.

he loves and is loved by mythal.

he snorts sometimes when he laughs.

he has murdered his closest friends.

he shoves his leg between lavellan's in the fade.

he asks, afterward, to talk.

he has done beautiful, brave, glorious things.

he has done unspeakably cruel things.

he is wisdom and he is pride.

he was corrupted by war.

he destroyed himself by trying to save the elvhen.

he won the war against the evanuris but there was nothing left.

he woke into a surreal nightmare, stripped of his power and terrifyingly helpless.

he went immediately to planning a restoration, an attempt to fix what he had broken.

we are made to feel the pressure he was under by playing through in hushed whispers, where we sacrifice a year and all that occurred within it based on a limited perspective of what the current world was like.

while his efforts will address his guilt, alleviating his guilt is not the core reason for them.

the evanuris will escape. with them, directly or indirectly, the blight will pour across thedas.

the worst he can do to the world, the damage from tearing down the veil, will be as nothing compared to the absolute destruction wrought by the evanuris and the blight.

his greatest, truest mistake is in trusting none, but he has been shown time and again that his deepest trusts are not reciprocated (nor does he reciprocate that trust in turn).

bitter experience has taught him to bear his duty alone. and it is a just duty, even terrible as it is.

but when all is over, when ghilan'nain's dragon lay dead; when ghilan'nain herself lay dead; when elgar'nan's dragon lay dead; and, finally, when elgar'nan himself, all-father, first-born of the evanuris, king and lord and god and tyrant to the ancient elvhen, when he, too, lay dead...

the world changed. solas' world changed. the possibilities changed. and he could step free of his dread path.

he goes to heal the titans, his first and greatest victims.

beyond that, we do not know.

what will become of the veil, held in place not by unwilling tyrants constantly pushing at their cage, but by a willing soul who holds regard for both spirits and mortals?

in time, can a way be discovered to ease it down?

neither mortal nor spirit are wounded by the mere existence of the veil. they are limited by its existence, and crossing it is a risk, even a great one. but it is a division between worlds, not a weapon dripping poison into each.

it can remain, and ways can be developed in time to ease the passages, to ease the burden.

or it can be removed, carefully and thoughtfully, no longer rushed by the impending doom on the horizon.

but the titans are aching, have been aching, have been hurting and raging all this time. they are the ones who deserve attention. the spirits are not damaged by existence in the fade, just as the mortals are not damaged by existence in the waking realm. time will ease the travel between, in some way or other

but the titans are more important.

and he goes to them. of his own volition. a direction chosen as soon as he steps free of his path of death.

and that is why i love him so. he is not a foolish man; not a selfish one; not an ignorant one; not a conceited one. he is wounded, certainly, and cautious, and determined to the point of obsession. but with cause!

not a hypothetical, grasping-at-straws cause, but a genuine, immediate, explicit one.

in trespasser, we are shown, in a microcosm, what he is doing on a grand scale. without his intercession, the inquisitor will die, and the origin of their death is his fault.

so he takes their arm to preserve their body. it serves his purposes to do so, yes, but it is also a symbol of what he is doing for the world. for the worlds. he will wound that they might be alive to be wounded. he will take something from them that something might left to be wanting what was taken.

without his intercession, the worlds will die. with, they will be wounded.

his entire history is about working for the freedom of enslaved ppl - smth he continues to do while pursuing his ritual

he imprisoned tyrants who were destabilizing the world

he bonds with all members of the inquisition

during dai, he values taking the time to help regular people

during trespasser he manipulates events in part to inform the inquisition of the planned assault from the qunari, wanting to spare people

he also relieves the inquisitor's pain and pointedly credits them for their own successes if they thank him for skyhold

all actual evidence throughout the canon - not just solas' own word, mind - indicates that if he had left things alone, there would have eventually been massive destruction

he has repeatedly made the brutal choice to put the many over the few, no matter how much he values the few

up until the end of veilguard, tearing down the veil remained all but necessary for the safety of the world itself as a whole - remember, the veil is a consequence of the prison. they are inherently related, and while neither we nor solas can say for sure if destruction of one would cause the destruction of the other, it's a completely reasonable theory, and they would almost certainly impact one another regardless

however, as we see, there was another option - releasing the remaining evanuris and slaying first their archdemon/dragon thrall, and then slaying them