#gracelogs

I don't have the screenshots but somewhere in Lucanis' mind, you hear Illario's voice saying "If I was in charge, you wouldn't have to do this anymore." as far as I can tell, all the other lines in his memories are from the game, but this one is from The Wigmaker Job. the story that took place over a year (probably more) prior to the events of the game. it's referring to a scene where Lucanis comes back from their contract, injured, and Illario, worried about his cousin, says that Lucanis wouldn't have to do Caterina's bidding anymore if Illario was First Talon. so now we know Lucanis still thinks about that conversation, even though it happened so long ago.

two other things about The Wigmaker Job: 1) Illario is a lot different in it and in some ways he seems more competent than the Illario we get in veilguard; and 2) we see Zara Renata at the end, and she already has Lucanis in her sights. depending on how much time passed between that contract and Lucanis' kidnapping, she could've been setting this up for months to years.

in the concept art/storyboard frames that were recently released, Zara is hardcore giving siren in the first image and it almost looks like she's straight up controlling Illario via blood magic in the second (imo)

now imagine if Zara was looking into Lucanis, started with the people closest to him, found Illario, and said all the right things. imagine she said he should be First Talon, Caterina never loved him, Lucanis doesn't believe in him and is secretly just tolerating him, he can save Antiva from the Antaam (or whoever else), he can lead the Crows to their long-awaited unification and make them even stronger, he's the smartest prettiest most super special boy in the whole wide world, etc. (if you give this man an ounce of praise and he actually believes it, he will crumble, I know it.)

now imagine Zara, having successfully sunk her claws into Illario - Lucanis Dellamorte's cousin, the only person closer to the Demon of Vyrantium than the First Talon herself - manages to convince him to let her kill Lucanis. he doesn't have to do it himself so there's less guilt. there's no way Caterina would make him First Talon if Lucanis was alive. and then Illario would be in a position to protect his beloved Antiva because if there's one thing the Antivan Crows are, it's patriots. I think Zara played Illario like a fucking fiddle and the game was just really bad at showing us that. I think when her spirit says "he fooled us both," she means he fooled her by being less of a coward than she thought and straight up killing her.

and maybe this is the Illario apologist in me, but I also think he realized the whole thing was a doomed plan after he was defeated. I mean, he shows up to the final battle to help, at risk of his own life. maybe he's trying to atone, maybe not, but still - he is there, and he sounds more like the Illario we see in The Wigmaker Job than whatever we got through the rest of the game. with his quippy little "was that suitably self-important?" line, he's closer to himself than he was this whole time, and that makes me wonder if maybe he wasn't fully Illario. maybe that was grief and guilt and a shaky sense of self and Zara's manipulation and the feeling of losing his grip on the power he never quite had to begin with, all bundled up into a new, bitter, resentful man. I think he was used like a pawn in Zara's chess game, and that doesn't take away from his agency in this situation or lessen the blow of his betrayal, but it does make it easier for me to swallow the fact that the Obvious Traitor Illario I was immediately skeptical of in-game is not the Illario I immediately loved after one scene in Tevinter Nights where he shaves a single hair because it was uneven with the rest of his five o clock shadow.

I think ultimately, Illario realized Lucanis would forgive him anyway. I think it's because he realized he would forgive Lucanis too.

however.

obsidian made kotor 2, a game praised for its writing and many fans' favorite of the pair, in 14 months. they then proceeded to make fallout: new vegas, again praised for its writing and hailed as a shining example of video game storytelling, in 18 months. a lot of content was ultimately cut from both of these games, but in kotor's case, it was lovingly added back in by fans over the years despite not being especially easy to mod because the fans were so passionate about what they already had that they wanted to enhance it. these games are both known to be kinda janky as well. but the games at their core have satisfying stories, characters, and an incredible overall narrative that feels satisfying and fits with their respective universes, maintains respect for the established lore and characters, and is tonally consistent with the atmosphere and themes of previous games. hell, dragon age 2 was also made in about the same time frame based on what I could find, and as much as the assets were reused there and it could be occasionally glitchy, it remains one of the best bioware narratives with some of their most memorable characters, and it accomplished that while both keeping to the lore and vibe of the dragon age series AND expanding it into new territory.

I am aware that there are differences like engines, era, expectations, pushes from management, etc, but I'm mostly focusing on the writing and the narrative team's priorities. I wouldn't care if they reused assets to save time and money. I wouldn't care if a couple side quests had to go, or some character arcs were a little less polished, or some side characters were cut entirely. honestly I would have preferred it if some of the characters WERE cut entirely. if you're just going to spit on all of her character development, don't bring morrigan back. cut some of that banter in the lighthouse and let me talk to my companions properly. cut that goddamn arena and put those resources toward fleshing out the lords of fortune. even if the rest of the team wanted that entire faction cut so they could focus on other things, cut the fucking faction.

I will never apologize for rightfully criticizing the choices the writers made while making this game. the game talks to you - both you as the player AND you as the character - like you're stupid. repeating things over and over again just to make sure you Really Get It, dumbing down so many aspects of its own lore, reducing any kind of conflict to therapy speak or an HR meeting, etc. rook has no characterization to speak of and their dialogue and tone is wildly inconsistent depending on which npc you're speaking to at the time. why is rook clever enough to do playful, flirty hunter/prey banter with davrin but also too awkward to properly flirt with harding? the one canonically nonbinary neurodivergent companion frequently expresses themselves by growling and roaring and their individuality and competency are repeatedly undermined by their own writer's narrative decisions and banter. the game disregards its own lore and at times straight up contradicts itself. it's pretty, but lacks substance, and fails to live up to the standards a lot of us had for a dragon age game.

I won't pretend I know everything that went on behind the scenes but I think a year and a half is more than enough time to write a better narrative than what we got, even with some pushback from another dev team. I've seen countless thinkpieces by fans who have come up with solutions for plot holes and fixes for the overall narrative, and these are people who came up with this stuff in a matter of a few days or weeks, or sometimes just a few hours. you can't blame me for thinking veteran bioware writers - who SHOULD know their own lore by now - could have come up with something better than this in that amount of time, regardless of the limitations. choices were made and things were prioritized that shouldn't have been. I do not forgive the writers, EA, or bioware execs for this, and I will continue to criticize the responsible parties for the product we were sold, which includes criticizing the writers for shoddy work.

imagine if this is why Illario is so inflexible in the wigmaker job when it comes to witnesses and finishing contracts. maybe he got his act together sometime after his teenage years or something and realized he needed to step it up if he wanted to be the heir, so he trained harder and really devoted himself to his work as a crow instead of fucking around doing rich boy shit. that's not to say that he wasn't just as talented and dedicated as Lucanis. I firmly believe Illario is every bit the assassin Lucanis is but Caterina - and by extension, Lucanis - just refused to acknowledge it.

"you think I'm not good enough?"

"are you?"

sometimes Lucanis opens his mouth and Caterina comes out tbh.