a fuller meta post on morrigan because... she's fucked up, absolutely, but i love her so, so much. also this got hella long!

idk all the canon, just learned about witch hunt a few hours ago, etc, but from what I do know:

she grew up in EXTREME isolation in the korcari wilds. she was discouraged if not forbidden from interacting with other people, so the only one there to ease her isolation was flemeth. morrigan also cooks, which you could easily expand to say that she does most if not all of the domestic labor

she's also a shape-shifter, but iirc, even animals were wary of her. so it's not like she could ease her isolation indirectly by becoming an animal and spending time with others of that species

when she stole the mirror - having been spying on the nearby village, just to see how people lived - it was taken away and she was punished. one small trinket from the outside world. one connection to a world beyond the hut she lived in. and remember - flemeth was feared. no one approached, even when the hut was abandoned

her only escape is in learning magic, something she does seem to care about. and judging from flemeth's character, she was likely encouraged to take knowledge by whatever means necessary - while at the same time, flemeth deprived her of contact with the outside world

in a strange way, morrigan and solas mirror each other. both of them emerged warily into a world where everyone else felt like a shadow and had to slowly learn that other people have value

morrigan is tactical, selfish, manipulative, and driven. what's interesting about her is both the why and what of her drive: preservation of knowledge. bc think about it: what did she fundamentally lack, as a child growing up in extreme isolation? knowledge. balanced knowledge. instead, she was force-fed a specific narrative that devalued other people and herself, her feelings and needs

what did she feel when she read flemeth's grimoire and found out that her mother was planning to steal her body, whatever the truth of the situation might've been? the only person she'd ever been allowed to depend on, and then she realizes she was always just a vessel. even the magic that flemeth taught her can no longer be seen as the one good thing she did, because now it's really just to give flemeth a good, powerful body to inhabit. there's no love between a mother and a daughter, even twisted as it might've been; instead, morrigan was just a continuation, a part of flemeth's story. her self immaterial. how utterly horrifying

and even before that, she's just... given away. no choice of her own unless the warden specifically asks her. flemeth just hands her off to these two strangers, puts her in an extremely dangerous situation, estranged from the structure of the only life she's ever been allowed to know, and forced to cooperate with non-mages and strangers and just people, full-stop, each of which is a brand new experience for her

so when it happens again in dai, when no matter who you put on the throne morrigan is just handed off to another extremely dangerous situation, that's so... heartbreaking. she's had so few real choices in her life

in fact, I can only think of one decision that's presumably entirely her own: joining the orlesian court. because, dealing with flemeth? the warden decides. the dark ritual? the warden decides. and I get it, narratively, but it's SO fucked that the warden gets to decide whether or not morrigan has a child

and why does she want to do the dark ritual? for power, of course, but also for preservation. the idea of the old god soul being lost distresses her, just as the idea of the well of sorrows being lost distresses her. she's selfish and possessive about knowledge, about magic, but she's also desperate to save it

I've already mentioned her reasons for so doggedly pursuing knowledge, but what of magic? I think with magic, she's absolutely terrified of it fading from the world. not disappearing, just becoming slowly lost, less important... because magic is the only thing she feels confident about wrt herself. gifted child + emotionally abused/neglected child = a desperation to create and maintain a sense of personal value, a strength, which in her case is magic. I think a part of her still feels like her magic is her, that it's all or at least most of her.

it's also why she thinks she's better suited than anyone else to gain this knowledge. she isn't, but she can't accept that. I think a part of her sees this as her fate, her destiny, to preserve and learn, to make use of the way she was abused and the person she was forced to become. it gives meaning to her life. it's not right, it's not healthy, and it's still reliant on the devaluation of others that flemeth taught her, but it does make sense for her

it's also why I find it so, so fascinating to let her have kieran in dai. she doesn't use him. she loves him. genuinely, deeply. she guides him without controlling him, is openly fond of him, and states that she won't have him growing up in a bog deprived of human contact. what's more... at court, she doesn't let herself become associated with him, because she doesn't want to taint his experience or other people's perception of him. she says at skyhold that most people in court just knew him as a quiet, polite boy. she's desperately worried for him when he goes through the eluvian into the fade. i mean, panicked, even leliana states that she's never seen her like that

and when she thinks flemeth is going to take him? morrigan offers herself, her body. the thing she fought against. the thing she was most afraid of. she offers herself to flemeth in order to save kieran. leliana mentions that kieran has changed morrigan, has softened her, and it's true

she still has all these hallmarks of the way flemeth abused her and following the end of dai, has to contend with the fact that flemeth, her mother, was one of the ancient elvhen, some mysterious entity who's lived on through ages. how does she deal with that? can she? she's the child of someone regarded as a god - how will that impact her? how will it impact kieran? she knows they aren't gods, just powerful mages, but as she says of corypheus, it doesn't matter so much whether they're right (re: godhood) as it matters whether theyre capable. flemeth is capable of things that would generally be ascribed to godhood. and morrigan is her daughter. and was taught that her only value is in her magical ability