#so cheating

now i am just like...uh. yeah, no. *facepalm*

i feel like the reveal has in large part erased my attraction to him, at the least while playing Maevra, not because he’s irredeemable for his actions necessarily, but because he just...idk, he talks a good game about honor and virtue and sacrifice and stuff (and, to be fair, he rarely outright lies, he just evades), but ultimately he’s pretty much a hypocrite. He wants to believe in the Wardens as this ideal which will redeem him so badly that he just...misses the point, almost? He idolizes the Wardens for their sacrifice, their willingness to lay down their lives for the people around them, but that’s not what he did, is it? When it was him or his men, he ran. It’s no wonder honor is the only virtue he can see in the Wardens - they’re just a constant reminder of his greatest failing, an ideal he can’t live up to no matter how he tries because ultimately he’s still running, still hiding, still lying. 

the Wardens aren’t these paragons of virtue Blackwall holds them up to be; they’re realists, willing to go to extremes for their cause. Maybe they give a lot of people a second chance where no one else would, but that’s because it’s practical, necessary. The Joining is a death sentence, so they may as well take the mishaps, the people with nothing else to go back to. Those ones will make the best soldiers in the end. Give someone a purpose and a family where before they had none, and their loyalty is guaranteed. I can’t help but think that if Rainier HAD actually joined the Wardens instead of taking on Blackwall’s identity, he would be a much more balanced person, having come to terms with his past and not being so tortured about his future. Instead he’s chosen a path that essentially leaves him stagnant, unable to forget or move forward. 

also don’t even get me started on the ambiant dialogue everywhere if you banish the Wardens and allow Blackwall to stay, which I did this time around. oooh blackwall. ooooh so awesome and stalwart and great. he can resist corypheus. he must be in a class all his own.