#isseya

Veilguard:

nationalism

little brother's goth phase

reflexive cissexism

repressed female rage

contesting grandma's will

rejected tenure application

First, it was extremely lore-consistent. I don’t know how to tell people this, but the Grey Wardens simply are sort of shady— it’s part of their charm. In DAO alone we found out they:

- kill anyone who refuses the joining

- are definitely using a blood magic ritual to induct people

- tried to usurp the throne of Fereldan

In DA2 they:

-Forced Malcolm Hawke to perform a blood magic ritual against his will to contain Corypheus, by threatening to kill his family

- Built a giant prison in the mountains they didn’t tell anyone about and that someone could wander into and not be able to escape

- the entire Corypheus thing. They didn’t even tell the other Wardens like what he was or how dangerous he was.

DAI:

- the demon army thing was pretty bad

And that’s not even mentioning any stuff from the books or comics or shows! That’s just stuff in the games!

So they’re shady. It’s okay! They’re my little woobie guys, idc if they’re sort of shady!

But the plot in DATV is about all of those previously established issues coming back to bite them in the fucking ass, as they should! Knock knock, it’s the consequences of your actions, baby! The chickens are home to roost

(Which is just good storytelling. Like if you set up a bunch of issues and then never pay them off or anything that’s bad.)

Destroying Weisshaupt was inspired! Firstly bc Davrin is Weisshaupt, metaphorically (bulwark against the darkness, etc, I already made a post) so it serves his character arc. But also because it strips away the pageantry and the grandeur from them; no more castle for you! No more myth!

Davrin explicitly tells you that the First Warden is a traditionalist; he represents the historical attitudes of the Wardens. They do not accept help, they do not give up their secrets, they are standing alone against the dark. And it doesn’t work! He’s fucking wrong (and very punch-able). Being secretive and isolationist is a mistake that costs them nearly everything.

But also, and I’m not sure how many people experienced this on the first go-around, the game does ultimately come down on the side of the Wardens always trying to do the right thing. You CAN talk the First Warden down, because in the end he’s a Warden, and he might be stubborn and curmudgeonly and miserable but he CARES about the world. He came to do good. He admits he was wrong and he helps you. Because the heart of the Wardens is about selfless service to other people. In Death, Sacrifice.

Stripping away Weisshaupt and the glory and pageantry leaves the Wardens at their most vulnerable and forces them to return to their fundamental principles: helping people. That’s what Lavendel is about. Helping individual people and preserving every life possible even if it doesn’t feel that glamorous or heroic. Lavendel isn’t a significant place; it doesn’t matter, but it matters so much.

And then, the Cauldron.

First off, do not at me about Last Flight. I don’t think people should have to read external materials to play this game and understand it. If the information is vital it should be presented to the player in the text.

The Cauldron is the repository of the Wardens’ secrets; it’s where the keep the bones of the Archdemons, the secret to the Joining, ancient and dangerous weapons, as well as the bodies of the griffons, which represents their most shameful errors. Isseya is the avatar of the Wardens’ mistakes; she’s been hurt by what they made her do, and her pain was never acknowledged by them. They buried her story and her suffering like they bury everything they don’t want to deal with and are ashamed of. They left the bones of the griffons, whose deaths they directly caused, to rot because they were too sad to acknowledge them.

But it was wrong to walk away, it was wrong to bury it. Isseya makes sure that they can never do that again, that they have to own what they did and take responsibility. By discovering who she is and by restoring her personhood to her, by reminding her of her love which drove her to her anguish in the first place, Davrin saves her and he saves the griffons. He doesn’t do it using violence, because another sin of the Wardens is just assuming that they can kill their way out of their problems, which the game disproves by revealing the origin of the Blight. You can kill as many darkspawn as you want, you will never fix it! The Titans’ dreams do not need to be slain, they need to be healed.

Isseya is in so much pain because of her incredible love for both the griffons and the Wardens, and because of her guilt. Look what she builds! An alternate Weisshaupt, a distorted reflection of her home. She entreats both Davrin and Assan to join her, because she doesn’t think she’s trying to destroy anything. She’s trying to save them! She wants them to come home. “I am their mother,” she says, and she’s right. She saved them, then, and she ends up saving them now! Because she made Davrin and the other Wardens look, unflinchingly, at what they had done, it will never happen again. She was going about it wrong during the game, but she was ALWAYS trying to save them.

Davrin, Antoine and Evka represent the Wardens’ commitment to being different. They let Flynn undergo the Joining without becoming a Warden, they reveal secrets to non-Warden Rook, they offer to help the Viper without asking for anything in return. They ask for help and offer it freely. If the Wardens are going to persist into a world without Archdemons, they HAVE to change. They can’t be what they were anymore. The game is asking what a Warden is when they have to be more than their oath, when they have to live. It’s a great exploration of and expansion on previously established lore.

isseya, in the last of her right mind—her good, brilliant mind—didn’t trust the first warden of her time or the first warden of future times to make the right call about the griffons’ fate. she did want it to be a warden, but an ordinary one with an eye for details, and i can’t remember if she ever said why, but she wanted it to be one of her own people. (possibly she wanted it to be an elf who learned that garahel, the elf grey warden who ended the fourth blight, had a blood mage sister fighting alongside him? valya, who finds the journals, does grapple with whether that information should be shared or if it’s not worth tainting an elven hero’s legacy.)

In The Last Flight, Isseya hid the griffon eggs away because she did not believe the Wardens of the Exalted Age were appropriate caretakers of this sacred bond and burden. I think she should essentially make the same claims about the Wardens of the Dragon Age: after the events of the Fifth Blight, choices made by the HoF regarding Avernus, and then regarding the Architect/Mother, and then of course, the whole supporting Corypheus thing—Isseya does not believe that the Wardens of the Dragon Age are ready to handle the griffons. I think she ought to kidnap the griffon clutch and kill the griffon caretakers, in an attempt to put them back to sleep, and hide them until a future age where the Wardens will treat them better, so that they specifically WON'T be tainted by the Blight spreading through the world.

Davrin would still be determined to pursue this mysterious woman who'd killed his comrades and kidnapped all-but-one griffon, they'd still run to The Cauldron and find out both about Isseya, and the First Warden's attempt to try and taint the griffons and have sympathy for her actions—and then Davrin and Rook would be left with a genuinely compelling moral choice: do you agree with Isseya's decision and leave the griffons in stasis under her care, or do you fight her and free them, because you trust the Wardens/need them now?

Within the canon of Veilguard, the Grey Wardens are ruled by superiors whose first instinct is to neglect and ignore world-ending threats because of selfish politics. Although there are good Wardens like Davrin, Antoine and Evka, do you trust the institution of the Grey Wardens to properly treasure the lives of the griffons? Because you can't just limit the griffons to "good" Wardens—once they are out in the world, they will become the companions and weapons of Wardens you dislike! And in this age of horrible Blight, where things have gone to absolute shit: do you push to try and bring the griffons into the world anyway, because you need every advantage you can get to save the world? And I think this makes Davrin's personal storyline more about him, while still also being about the griffons! What does Davrin feel about this whole story? Isseya specifically protected the griffons from being discovered by anybody other than elvish Wardens—how does his feelings about being Dalish and being a Warden collide here? How do her pleas for protecting and preserving the past and keeping it safe from corruption and danger feel to him? Is he the sort of person who wants to protect the griffons, how does he feel about the Grey Wardens as an institution with knowledge of what was done in the past, what is he willing to sacrifice to save the world?