Oh yeah, some sections of this fandom LOVE to hurl abuse at Anders, who's trying to change things and then heap praise on Vivienne who's really only in it for herself and doesn't care who she has to step on to obtain more power and prestige. I wouldn't say I enjoy the way the narrative destroys any mage who goes against the Chantry as that would be a lie on my part, it actually feels like the narrative just disregards quite a lot of the more pro mage choices, at least to me. Particularly DA:I.
Mm. Tumblr was in its heyday when DA:I came out, and Tumblr is a place where fandom has collectively come together to dwindle everything in the universe down to simple, black-and-white cardboard cutouts. With a world and story that's very complex, Dragon Age as a whole was bound to crash and burn in such a fandom. It's no longer a matter of complexity and moral ambiguity, but a question of good and evil, right and wrong. To me, that's both infinitely infuriating - use your brains, for god's sake - and infinitely interesting. Since, you know, the Chantry also pushes a right-wrong, good-evil narrative. Oftentimes it feels like real people in our real world have fallen for this same simple narrative, though their opinions on who and what falls on which side may differ a bit from the Chantry's.
When it comes to Anders, he's evil because he killed innocent people in a terrorist attack. Which is weird, because most of fandom hates the Chantry and how mages are treated? Yet they believe change will come through negotiation? Honestly, I think these people who hate Anders are still in the mindset I was when I first played DA2 - these things I hate about the Chantry and the Circle and Kirkwall will all magically be fixed because I'm the main character in a video game. But in reality, it never works like that. Every country gained its freedom from monarchy with revolution. Slavery only ended after a war (and even then only in part). Corrupt leadership only dies when the leaders die, and innocent people will always die, too. "Gone With the Wind" is a classic for a reason.
To me, revolution is always bloody and messy and cruel, just as much as it is necessary. But in the world of good-evil, anyone who kills innocents (on-screen) is a bad guy. Period.
Vivienne, however, is different! Because the innocent man she sent to his death made a racist remark, which deserves death, apparently. (And with the good-evil crowd, such over-the-top violence is often lauded.) And since Vivienne hides behind elegance and cleverness, her careless cruelty and dismissal of other people is either missed or ignored as 'girlboss, take no shit from no man' behavior.
Or at least, I hope it's this and not the usual 'she's a powerful black woman so we love her' thing that fails to look at the character and only looks at her body. There's reasons I love the new Spider-Man MJ and hate Vivienne, and shockingly none have anything to do with their looks.
And on the point of pro-mage choices being thrown out the window, nonny, I'm afraid we're gonna have to disagree on this. The first Dragon Age showed me the cruelty of the templars and the Circle the instant I was told I either saved the Grand Enchanter or every mage died, even if I killed all the blood mages and demons. I saved those mages' lives then. DA: Awakening gave me the chance to befriend Anders against templars who would have seen him killed simply for being a free mage. DA2 gave me the chance to back Anders' revolution. DA:I let me give Fiona a leadership role outside of the Circle and let me bring back the College of Enchanters. It was the world and its anti-mage attitude that kept trying to set me back. But if the Hero of Ferelden hadn't befriended Anders and Justice, the revolution would never have happened. If my Inquisitor hadn't saved the mages of Redcliffe, they all would have been made slaves to Tevinter.
I love the efforts I've made because it feels difficult to induce change, and it comes through the two-steps-forward-one-step-back dance that is so common in history (we're watching it right now with our loss of abortion rights!). So this feels very real to me, that the changes I make seem unimportant and subtle and like they've barely made a ripple in how the world works. But my tiny efforts sparked a revolution. It made a giant portion of mages free. The world of Thedas may be fighting against these changes with everything it has, but they're happening, like it or not. We just have to keep pushing.
