#pro mage

It’s interesting to reflect on Wynne’s Establishing Character Moment in Dragon Age: Origins, especially in light of the strange whitewashing of the Templar Order in Inquisition as well as her apparently conservative politics.  When we encounter her in Broken Circle (our first interaction with her since the brief chat at Ostagar), we see her fighting to protect a group of young children not only from demons but from the Templars -- the very military force that claims to protect them.  If she is recruited into the party, in fact, we discover that she had already sacrificed her life for them.  She is technically dead/undead and only kept standing due to possession by a spirit of Faith.

As soon as the party enters the door, she’s fearful that the Warden has come to kill them all on behalf of Knight-Commander Greagoir, and depending on player choices/intentions, she may in fact be correct.  

Wynne: It’s you!  No... come no further.  Grey Warden or no, I will strike you down where you stand!

Warden: Wynne - what are you doing here?

Wynne: I am a mage of the Circle.  More importantly, why are you here?  The templars would not let just anyone by.

Warden: You have children with you.

Wynne: The tower is a place of learning.  Young apprentices are always here.  Why is that surprising?

Wynne: But this is no time to discuss that.  Why are you here?  Why did the templars let you in?

Warden: I am helping Greagoir resolve the Circle’s difficulties.

Wynne: Then you do serve the templars as I feared.  Do they have the Right of Annulment?

Warden: The Right of Annulment?

Wynne: The order from the grand cleric allowing the templars to completely annul a Circle.  Do they have it?

Warden: No, but Greagoir expects it to arrive soon.

Wynne: So Greagoir thinks the Circle is beyond hope.  He probably assumes we are all dead.  

Wynne: They abandoned us to our fate, but even trapped as we are, we have survived.  If they invoke the Right, however, we will not be able to stand against them.

Warden: It’s nothing less than this Circle deserves.

Wynne:  Do these children deserve death too?  Will they die by your hand?

Warden: Mages are a danger.  If I had a say, you would all be culled.

Wynne: Killing us solves nothing, but with training and education, mages learn to control their powers.

Wynne: You’re mad if you think I’ll let you lay a finger on these children.  If will fight you if you won’t listen to reason.

Wynne: I am not afraid of you.

Warden: This Circle must be destroyed, for all our sakes.

Wynne: If you insist on making war on the Circle, we have nothing more to discuss.  It comes to blows, then.  I will stop you or die trying.

BONUS - terrified child fleeing from being murdered:

Commentary

While Wynne can be condescending and sometimes preachy in her support for the Circle, her dialogue both here and elsewhere indicates that she has no illusions about the Templars keeping them locked inside.  

After all, they imprisoned her in Kinloch Hold since she was a young child, took her own child away from her forever, and threatened to slaughter both her and the other children she was mentoring in her son’s stead.  If recruited into the party, she opens up about the despair she felt as a girl when she realized she would be trapped there forever, and it was only by turning to the religious faith that was being forced on all mages in the tower that she began to make peace with her fate.  She knows that if the Libertarian Fraternity successfully leads a vote for independence from the Chantry, the Templars will simply kill them all.  She even uses the term “genocide” to describe what will happen.  She explicitly cites this as the reason why she opposes the independence vote. 

The mages will never be free! The Chantry would never allow it. Our only hope for survival is to show them we can be trusted! Don’t you remember what happened to the Circle in Ferelden? Do you want to give the templars another excuse to call for the culling of all mages?

She doesn’t reject freedom for her fellow mages for any personal advantage, throwing others like her under the bus to reap the rewards of brown-nosing.  If she wanted any semblance of power or status, after all, she would have accepted the post of First Enchanter (or second-in-line to it) a long time ago.  As of Dragon Age Origins, she has consistently rejected the opportunity to become Irving’s successor.  As of the end of Broken Circle, if she joins the party and defeats Uldred’s rebels, she still needs to ask for permission just to temporarily leave the tower, despite having proven her loyalty and competence beyond any reasonable doubt both here and over the past thirty or so years of incarceration.  It takes helping the Hero of Ferelden save the entire country by defeating the Archdemon to convince the Templars to allow her to come and go freely - an opportunity that, as her own son later points out, no one else has had or probably ever would have in their lifetime (and one, as the only the player knows, that is entirely conditional on player choices).

The only context in which she ever even considers fighting the Templars is when she has no other way of preventing the Templars from killing them all anyways - both during Broken Circle and in the climax of Asunder.

Her politics are, in the end, based on fear.

Anders was an interesting character with a backstory and a set of characteristics that would have been amazing if explored further, but I believe his character's potential was tragically squandered by bad narrative choices and poor writing.

Here's a list of how I think his narrative potential hadn't been fully explored:

His name really isn't "Anders" -- it was a name given to him when he arrived at the circle at age 12 and was so traumatized he refused to speak, not even to say his name. BioWare has never revealed Anders' birth name. We also know that he has Anderfels heritage on his father's side, who migrated to Ferelden as a boy. It could have been revealed, through his birth name, that he has some connection to an Anderfels-related plotline: he could be related to the First Warden, or his family could have prominence or influence in the Grey Wardens of Weisshaupt.

Anders is a mage, a Grey Warden, and a host to a Spirit of Justice. This combination of spirit healing (already a rare branch of magic), Blight magic, and a connection to a Spirit of the Fade has never occurred before in known canon. Anders being connected to the mages, the Circle, the Grey Wardens, the darkspawn, and Fade Spirits means that there is a whole world of possibilities to explore with that combination, so many things you could do with his character.

Leveraging off Anders' connection with Justice, a potential key to finding the cure for the Calling could have involved possession by a Fade Spirit. (We already know Fade Spirits are essential to curing Tranquility -- perhaps there's more we could do with that.)

Anders could potentially be a companion to both the Hero of Ferelden and the Champion of Kirkwall, depending on your World State. If your HoF didn't die during the Archdemon battle and continued to Amaranthine, Anders (together with Justice) is the only NPC companion who has traveled with both the HoF and Hawke, and is also a potential love interest to Hawke. (Zevran and Isabela also are NPCs acquainted with both the HoF and Hawke, but only Anders has been a party companion for both.)

Anders could potentially be the only known Grey Warden to have met both the Architect and Corypheus.

Anders could have potentially have battled demons in the Fade three times: his Harrrowing, the Blackmarsh sequence in DA Awakening, and the "Night Terrors" Feynriel rescue mission in DA2. Considering these experiences, plus the fact he has his own in-built Spirit GPS in the form of Justice to help him navigate the Fade, Anders has the highest potential to be the one to rescue Hawke/Stroud/Loghain/Alistair from the Fade (if left there in DAI and has the potential to be rescued).

Anders may have political connections to the throne of Ferelden, if Alistair was made King, and was present at and endorsed Anders' conscription into the Wardens.

If your Warden was Mahariel, Anders would have a common connection with Merrill. If your Warden was Amell, Anders could have an extra connection to Hawke, having known their relative. A Warden Amell or Surana could also have an added layer of their relationship with Anders, having grown up in the same Circle together. (Anders just has a lot of connections to famous people and an extensive network that would have made everyone on LinkedIn jealous, is what I'm sayin 😆)

Anders being a prominent figure in the mage rebellion could also have been explored further -- especially in relations to Fiona, who was coincidentally another mage advocating for mage freedom and with a connection to the Grey Wardens and Alistair.

I just think it's tragic that Anders had so much potential -- arguably one of the characters with the most potential in the overall plot -- and yet BioWare squandered all that potential to push their brand of "grey morality".

I think it's horrifying, but not in the 'he blew up a church' way.

It's horrifying that after years of campaigning, of peacefully fighting for equality, of being a 'good' rebeller, that it resorted to that. It's horrifying that Anders was fully willing to die for this if it meant that some day mages would be free. It's horrifying when you remember that the right of annulment had already been called for. It's horrifying that this was the only way the mages in the gallows even stood a chance of surviving.

I'm thinking about changing her hairstyle later but not sure yet