guddamnit

hawke: hey varric lets go do something outside of the city :-)

he was cocky, blew off an amazing opportunity over pride. he stayed silent when he knew he should have stood up for what was right. he was weak to corruption, and let his honor be bought for coin.

and ever since he has spent every day trying to be a bit better. he was cowardly, ran and let others take the fall, assumed another identity. But even so part of him wanted to do good, couldn’t handle being a coward knowing that he was capable of being brave. so he helps villagers in the hinterlands, passes on the one thing he has that isn’t tainted by him yet— heart, determination.

but as he journeys with the inquisitor, as he sees the true reality of what separates the tolerable from the bad, evil from good, he realizes, that he cannot stand idly by in the comfort of the lies he’s told himself. There’s no living between worlds, no ‘yes i’ve done bad, but at least i’m doing some good.’

no, blackwall chooses to live. not as a coward, hiding away from the world. as someone with honor, who makes mistakes and then fesses up to them, who admits wrong has been done because of him and lays his head down fully intending to accept the consequences.

who among us is truly that brave? aren’t we all prone to wishing to hide our mistakes in the closet of the past, to wanting to stay comfortable for the sake of our ego in fear that we may be looked upon with disgust? He had gotten away with it. He never had to reveal the truth. But he did.

blackwall IS us. The best version. he’s the man who’s done a hundred things wrong and will continue to do so. but he chooses redemption, the hardest thing in the world to do. the full honest airing of his past in exchange for a chance to do things right. to live anew, to live humbly and open himself to change and goodness in the face of harsh judgement because he knows what is right. that is the bravest and most admirable thing a person can do.

Consider Carver's feelings towards Hawke, and Gamlen's feelings towards Leandra (how are they alike? how are they different?). Varric's betrayal at the hands of the brother he grew up with, and Fenris' betrayal at the hands of the sister he doesn't remember (two wounds that bleed similarly). Bodahn and Sandal, Arianni and Feynriel. Anders, who never knew his parents. Aveline, who read to her father on his deathbed. Charade, who has a chance to reconnect with her father. Saemus, cradled by his father in the Chantry. So many other examples. At the end of the day, a lot of life's worst heartaches and greatest joys are linked to one's family.

And it’s always nice to see how much effect Hawke had on him, but I like this because it’s a big change from where he stood at the end of DA2. At the last battle -

Varric when siding with the templars: Defending innocent people, preserving our way of life? This is worth doing.

Varric when siding with the mages: I’m not sure we should be doing this. Helping dangerous people run amok.

Varric if Hawke sided with the templars in DA2: I’ve known a lot of mages. Even when they mean well, a lot of them do really stupid shit.

Varric if Hawke sided with the mages in DA2: I’ve known a lot of mages. They can be loyal friends if you let them. Friends who make bad decisions, but still. Loyal.

varric talks about writing an epic with the hero based off of anders

varric either hires guards for anders and the clinic or pays off the undercity gangs so they don’t bother him

fenris believes that suicide is a sin in the eyes of the maker

fenris says meredith “is the only thing holding back the madness” in kirkwall

anders and isabela met in the pearl. she identifies him as “the runaway mage who could do the electricity thing,” so presumably they hooked up

anders jokes about isabela having a heart of gold

if anders kills ella, he asks aveline if he can go to her funeral. aveline doesn’t allow him to

before act three, aveline says she always expected anders would be the one to “go out in a blaze”

anders describes warden mahariel as “valuing privacy rather highly”

merrill and anders both like cats. anders seems to have a preference for tabbies

merrill calls anders’ coat “a crow in the middle of anting”

hawke is taller than fenris, according to varric

isabela writes “friendfiction” about donnic and aveline and shares it with varric

varric bribes the guards so merrill won’t get in trouble for wandering through people’s gardens and picking their flowers

according to aveline, varric “hates commitment” but remains at hawke’s side even after six years. according to varric, he lies a lot

carver used to nail bethany’s braid to the bed while she was asleep

varric gives merrill a ball of twine in case she gets lost. merrill tries to give it back near the end of the game, but varric tells her to keep it

varric, again, either hires guards or pays off gangs so they don’t bother merrill during her late night walks

merrill is afraid she may not live to see what happens to kirkwall. she asks aveline to watch out for her friends because “anything could happen”

isabela thinks fenris and elves in general have pretty eyes

an unromanced fenris and isabela hook up at least once and are implied to continue doing so

carver has a tattoo of a mabari that he got before the events at ostagar. he can make it bark

aveline often changes the guard patrols around fenris’s mansion so none of them get suspicious of him commandeering the place

sebastian invites fenris back to starkhaven with an offer to train soldiers

fenris and donnic play diamondback together once a week

sebastian’s armor is so shiny that isabela uses it as a mirror

merrill doesn’t always get dirty jokes, but she certainly wants to get them

sebastian adds wesley’s name to the memorial in the chantry

merrill’s mother used to sing to her when she was sick

and some stuff from dlc banter:

varric offers hawke three potential nicknames depending on what personality hawke has: red is killer, blue is waffles, and purple is chuckles

anders played cards with the coterie, who now have claim on his right ear

hawke picks up a feather and considers giving it to anders. they say he “molts in the spring” and could always use more feathers for his coat

isabela wrote and sent books to bethany while she was in the gallows

isabela broke into a prison in val chevin to rescue her first mate

merrill has always wanted a baby griffon called “feathers”

anders isn’t very good at wicked grace or diamondback (varric mentions that hawke’s mabari is better at diamondback than anders is)

anders calls the grey wardens “the taint brigade”

merrills drops marbles into isabela’s boots to see how long it takes them to reach the bottom. she says her boots “go on for eternity”

hawke once led the party around the wounded coast for three hours because they were lost but didn’t want to admit it

I think it’s fairly clear that she resents Hawke for a number of reasons: knowing Malcolm better than she does (implied at the end of Legacy), failing to save him/acting as the head of the family despite the fact that she’s clearly not stepping into the role or even trying, the dead twin, etc. Moreover, I think it’s fairly obvious that Leandra and Malcolm were very much what would have happened if Romeo and Juliet hadn’t had a typically tragic ending: they were young, impulsive, and in “love,” but once you’ve given up everything, what does that really leave you with? A partner you barely know, who you’ve put all your trust into despite that, and despite however much Leandra says she puts love above all-else, we see even in her conversations with Gamlen that this very much isn’t necessarily the case, and she carries a lot of her bitterness with her. She wasn’t ready for what running away really meant, she was young enough to have very likely acted impulsively on a romantic ideal that didn’t pan out in any way she’d actually hoped.

It’s a really dysfunctional, bittersweet relationship, and I can’t at all blame Hawke for thinking this. Hawke’s already got a guilt complex a mile wide, no matter how you really play it; there’s a reason they take on all this responsibility that isn’t even necessarily theirs. With Malcolm, it’s all responsibility, and honor, and doing the right thing no matter how hard it is, and with Leandra, it’s all guilt, residual affects of growing jaded with where unchecked romance really leads.

She can be a caring figure, certainly, when she feels like it, but finding her to be a truly supportive one it a little harder for me, when she relies on her eldest child the way her younger children do. There’s such a lack of responsibility on Leandra’s part: something must always be someone’s fault, because surely SURELY there must still be some good left to come out of a foolish decision she made as a teenager. Their status in Kirkwall is Gamlen’s fault (which is true enough, but he DOES have a point in that she’s been away from home for 25 years; anything he does to drag the “family name” into poverty and squalor is his own doing, and while it’s hard to support his methods, he’s at least grown up enough to recognize the reality of his situation. Is Leandra’s anger at her brother entirely unjustified? No, but at the same time, she continually fails to recognize that she gave up her status, her family name, and her inheritances, and this attitude doesn’t come out of nowhere, suddenly rekindled after two decades of “hiatus.” It’s a failure to take responsibility. 

TL;DR, I seriously appreciate just how incredibly fucked up and dysfunctional Hawke family dynamics really are. It’s a family full of love that Hawke would and continually does put their life on the line for, but it’s not a healthy one. It’s not a supportive one. And I find it really telling that despite Malcolm’s questionable allegiances as an apostate, it’s THIS name that Hawke chooses to symbolize and hang onto, despite the fact that Leandra is clearly very ready to step back into the role of a noble that she’d “left behind.” Is it any surprise that Hawke seems so used to the responsibility, so easily stepping into the role as head of household when their parents are so embittered, disillusioned, and in Malcolm’s case, paranoid and uncommunicative?

Hawke’s so used to being the parent, being the one to take up responsibility that of course it’s going to kill them when they fail; they’ve been conditioned to impossible responsibility and the constant looming threat of guilt.

She’s not a bad mother (just look at how her children turned out) nor is she a bad person. She’s just a complicated human being, with warts and flaws. Sometimes it’s hard to see them because we self-insert as her child, and it’s always tough to see your parents as people, not ideas,  even when said parents are digital. But I think a read on her character that acknowledges said faults and mistakes is far more illuminating than the alternative.

If you haven’t played DA2 or you haven’t played it in a while, you might be scratching your head at Varric’s tombstone in the Fade. “Becoming his parents”? Why would Varric be afraid of that? (I mean, besides the obvious fact that many children fear becoming their parents.)

Carver:

Carver’s proficiency with a sword is pretty much all self-taught. While Malcolm tried to show him a few things, mostly he would come up with his own drills from watching mercenaries spar, then copying their moves with wooden sticks.

He received some proper training when joining the infantry, but “bitched to no end while doing it.”

When asked why he joined the infantry for the King’s Army, Carver said he just wanted to protect his family, because “someone had to” after Malcolm died.

In the Battle of Ostagar, Carver cut his own wedge in the darkspawn horde. Even when it was clear the battle was lost, he refused to give up.

His fellow surviving soldiers had to tackle him to the ground in order to make him stop, and three men had to drag him to cover, Carver crying the whole time. (Seriously, I can’t stress this enough, if there’s one thing this entry makes clear, it’s that this boy was traumatized.)

Avris Tanner, his fellow soldier, describes Carver as having “a stare like a templar, drive like a Warden, and more skill than sense.”

Bethany:

Bethany spent most of her childhood alone in the house, instead of playing with the other children in Lothering.

One time when she was outside, playing by the river with her and her brother’s friend Ebrin “Peaches” Janith, they were chased by a wild dog. The dog bit Bethany, and she made it go to sleep with magic. Even though Peaches kept her secret, Bethany stayed in the house even more after the incident.

Peaches brought her books to read, when coming to visit her brother. Bethany spent a lot of time reading and fantasizing about courtly life, with knights and princes. She was caught dancing with a book before.

Bethany always wanted to be “normal,” and you could tell this even in the way she reluctantly practiced her magic. 

There was a mysterious figure only identified as Sade, giving the account of this entry. He watched Bethany for most of her life under different guises on behalf of some unknown organization of apostates. Sade made sure Malcolm had everything he needed to train Bethany outside of the Circle. (I’m guessing Sade was a member of the Mages’ Collective.)

make me choose: actualwashington said: Mccree or Garrett Hawke            

if he joins the templars, he gets yelled at for charging onto the battlefield without waiting for his squad to catch up. they call him dangerously reckless and it’s not like he can say that he’s used to having three healing spells ready for him and at least one barrier already cast.

on the other hand, he’s very popular with the mages in the wardens. he’s the only person on the entire continent for whom run into battle and absorb as much damage as possible is an intuitive strategy. tanking was always his job! he knows to pull the battle away from the mages as much as possible.

he also knows how to be buffed. most warriors need practice to be able to use haste without tripping over their own feet. carver? carver was the guinea pig for hawke and bethany’s support spell training. it takes at least three haste spells stacked on top of each other to faze him. he’s not thrown when the heroic aura wears off and suddenly his hands are slower and his sword is heavier. he’s got a sixth sense for when a mage is about to cast an aoe spell right on top of him and he needs to move. 

you ever think about how no one outside of the dalish elves grew up fighting with mages?