#pweh

By his birth he is put down in a rat race he despises, yet desires to win so desperately just to prove everyone and especially the absolutely absent father figure wrong, and do so with gusto. He adopts quite a machiavellian approach to his own life and how he works toward that complicated goal. He joins Shadows out of late teen rebellion and for the longest time is not there really for the cause, there is an ulterior motive lingering in the back of his head. That is a blindspot he later forgets about and it bites him in the ass years after. Painfully.

He’s an altus mage. He generally tends to think of larger categories and despite them being of “greater good” it takes time for him to narrow them down to see not only calculation and statistics where it should be people. He radicalises pretty easily. He knows there’s collateral damage, always. And he thinks he’s ready for those sacrifices to be made. Exitus acta probat.

He’s (not by choice) a bloodmage - occasionally - and it ties with a certain will to sometimes impose cruelty both on others and himself. It requires a sort of forceful detachment in important matters. It also comes with crushing feelings of guilt and self-resentment he constantly tries to justify. Magic is a tool, right?

From all of the above Luc has this bivalent nature where he has no idea where he actually, truly belongs, because he’s already quite detached from Rivain and despite living in Tevinter since age 5, always constantly reminded he is not fully a vint. Not in a certain sense. He’s a Shadow Dragon, but has to lie to his comrades 24/7 about his identity in pretty little words. And he thinks he’s doing the right thing by doing so, protecting them from himself - from all that comes of him really being himself with all the luggage - but mostly protecting himself. All that pia fraus is a direct product of his upbringing. He’s all tangled in that complicated web of self-lies he’d build over the years that he forgets himself that omnia mea mecum porto.

On the brighter side all the “good” values per se come from his mother. They take root and survive in small rebellious acts long enough to sprout when he’s ready. Despite his efforts to convince himself of being what he is, he still has lots of compassion and understanding to people around him. And is not immune to making connections, to value honesty (toward himself of course, but at least he’s ready to reciprocate as deep as the situation dictates) and things that are humane in their nature. He wants and  tries to be a bigger person, something better, something lighter, something others can look up to. Once, twice, slowly trying to right the wrongs that already happened. (Not like there isn't a certain influence in his inner circle about that).

Watch him be bitten in the ass again for it.

Gwyn [GW]

Ah, my sweet Fereldan child. Daughter of two hailed heroes. Heiress to the teyrnir of Amarantine. Current king-consort’s niece. Beloved and cherished and protected from a younger age. THE disney princess. 

Gwyn is no stranger to a little bit of entitlement because of her heritage, and, specifically, her family history, aka Warden Cousland’s beef with First Warden(s). Gwyn thinks, a bit naively, because she’s barely 19, that she just knows better. It’s the teen maximalism at its best and worst in her, taking her own experience at Vigil’s Keep and her mother’s style of managing the Wardens as ideal. 

She also thinks because of that she, Gwyn, knows how to handle shit, especially concerning wardens, she has this natural ego, this belief she HAS TO step up and do things. Which is a polar sort of entitlement to that of Luc’s. She feels this responsibility which neither of her parents wanted her to bear, and a bit of dreams of heroics.

Combined with competence acquired by training at home and all the runaway hot girl shit, makes her think only she could handle certain things. She has to learn to rely on others as much as she relies on herself, not only inspiring them to be self-sufficient, but actively engaging to let them reach out to her and share the burdens that are too heavy to carry alone.

Due to runaway reasons, while we are at it, she’s more on the same page with peasantry than actual royalty she technically belongs to by birth. Her dislike of Fereldan post-Blight politics and her mother’s involvement in it, she transfers the same approach to authority to other places, which is, in hindsight, not the best strategy to have. She purposefully hides her family name by going as Gwyneth Thorne for those reasons and from time to time it bites her back, but not as painful. (But only until South gets blighted and she has THE experience firsthand).

Despite her mature image, Gwyn’s whole motivation for the Rook business is to help cure her parents. As simple as that, and she’s so single minded about it, she forgets to focus on other things. Forgets that she’s still a child with a gaping weeping hole made by her parents absence. One she’s desperately trying to stuff with something for years. She forgets she needs to let herself be vulnerable, open. Not some fearless brave warrior a Warden should be, not the effective leader, but just a person. When she lets herself cry for the first time that’s gonna be a revelation.

Also, she’s Fereldan, that lot comes with the funniest bundle of biases. Despite her education Gwyn would be either spouting the pup nonsense as much as harding, or be a surprised picachu for the whole year Varric drags her around as they track Solas. She easily forgets things are not what they were “back home” and when calculating she should probably consider cultural differences instead of assuming - she’s working on it, honestly.