I feel like Isolde gets a ragingly bad rap from fandom for the most part. I hear a lot how people choose to let her sacrifice herself because of her annoying voice or because she as a “lying bitch”, which always makes me cringe. Yes, she did lie. Yes, she covered up something dangerous which had dire consequences, and yes, I get a little irritated with the over-dramatic Orlesian accent. That being said, though… I can’t help but wonder how much of the ire directed at Isolde is because she is a woman. A woman who *gasp* makes decisions out of desperation that have terrible results. She has flaws, but for some reason there seems to be a lot about Isolde’s particular flaws that are condemned for reasons that feel very dismissive and, frankly, a bit misogynistic at times.

I have a lot of respect and sympathy for Isolde based on what we know about her. We know that she is the daughter of a nobleman who occupied Redcliff during the Orlesian occupancy of Fereleden. We know that she fell in love with Eamon during the occupation, and when Orlais was driven out, she remained with her husband. Isolde made a conscious decision to remain in a country that hated her and to the best of my knowledge, held her head high despite the outright (and mostly deserved) hatred directed towards Orlais.

Isolde, however, has been a product of the world in which she lives. We know that she is very pious. We know that she is highly suspicious of magic, and that the job of raising her son was hoisted almost fully on her according to in-game dialogue. When Connor began to show signs of manifesting magic, she naturally panicked, and a large chunk of this probably had to do with the attitudes and laws regarding mages. She knew that her only child would not be allowed to inherit the Arling if it was known he was a mage, and pursuant to the time period we seem to be dealing with, the inability to produce a legitimate heir was more than likely going to be seen as a huge failure on her part. We know that nobles are expected to produce heirs, and this burden, naturally, falls on the women. It seems to be implied that Eamon is much older than Isolde, though I can not confirm this. I always imagined that it was difficult for the Guerrins to get pregnant at all. In my head canon, Teagan is actually Connor’s father, though Isolde loves Eamon very much. I have no problem believing that Isolde and Teagan had a relationship, though she was always, first and foremost, loyal to Eamon. In fact, in my head canon, Isolde doesn’t know who the father is, and doesn’t really care. An heir is an heir, he has Guerrin blood, and Eamon is happy.

Isolde decides to keep Connor’s magic a secret, and I do see her condemned for this quite often. Funnily enough, it was Loghain who offered a solution to her problem in the form of referring a known apostate and maleficar to her as a tutor for Connor. Loghain supported this, as it was a way in to try to eliminate Eamon from standing in his way. Rarely do I see Loghain’s part in this criticized, but more often, the fact that Isolde lied and tried to cover up Connor’s magic by resorting to an apostate is used as justification for ending her life.

Not unlike Loghain, Isolde made desperate choices that turned out poorly. Unlike, Loghain, Isolde was not committing war crimes, rather she was just trying to keep her family safe. She says herself that she had no reason to not trust Loghain, and a lot of people felt that way. He was the Hero of River Dane. He was an epic and iconic figure to Fereldens. My personal opinion, though I realize it is unpopular, is that there is no way to condemn Isolde (without being sexist) and her actions while excusing Loghain’s, especially with the knowledge that he facilitated them with the intent to murder her husband.

Isolde’s decision was ultimately her choice. Kahrin allowed her sacrifice because she saw little better option (the other really being killing a young child, because the Circle’s aid was NOT an option for them). Isolde pays for her actions in either her own life or her child’s, and no matter how it works out, the Guerrins will lose their son, either to the abomination or to the Circle. In the end, Isolde accepts the responsibility for her actions, and admits they were well-intentioned by poorly executed.

I feel for her. I really do. I have grief for the way that circumstances in her life made her feel she had to resort to what she did, and also that it ultimately causes everything she tried to avoid. Lady Isolde Guerrin is an excellent example of how life is not, in fact, equal for women in Ferelden, no matter how equal they appear to be on the surface.

Cross posted.

No. The thing that is niggling at the back of my mind, and the left, front, and center of it too, is this pushback against the idea that we aren’t supposed to love and otherwise care for people with mental illness and disability in spite of said disabilities, or illnesses, or anything else.

See? A perfect parallel! Mental illness always manifests so obviously.

Part of this comes from the framing of this objection. Already, someone compared it to loving someone in spite of an annoying habit they might have, and someone else told me that they thought it was all right to hate that part of the person. Disturbingly, to me, is that I know that most frequently, these thoughts on the subject come from people who are abled or neurotypical. Not always, but often enough, and even when they don’t they are often influenced by the way the world wants us to look at mental illness and disability. Our society wants us to believe that the caregiver/loved one’s perspective on mental illness or other disabilities is the one that should be centered. Rarely do we see the conversation happening from the inside, even in the most progressive and intersectionally progressive circles. Discussions centered on disability should take the concerns, needs, and desires of the person with said disability into account. This is why I am a strong advocate for people who want to refuse treatment. For people who don’t want to “get better” according to the way the world would have us all be (there are other reasons, and some of them scary and awful, so we won’t get into them right now).

Part of what really is getting to me is this idea that we can compare disability, especially mental illness, to other things, such as never rinsing you dishes when you put them in the sink or leaving your socks next to the computer. A person with annoying habits can unlearn said habit. They can figure out how not to do that. It isn’t comparing apples and oranges, it’s comparing oranges and hamburger. People with mental illness don’t just get over it, unlearn it, snap out of it. They instead learn to cope with and live with it — usually, except when they don’t — because they have no choice.

Saying that “I will love you in spite of your disability” runs in a similar vein to suggesting that I love my husband in spite of his being Asian, or my daughter in spite of her blue eyes, or a close friend in spite of being homosexual. These are things that people are born with, and in some cases, develop over time. They are intrinsically part of that whole person. People with mental illness do not choose to be mentally ill. It’s a thing that happens, and supporting that person and loving that person includes that part of them, too. It’s OK to dislike something that hurts someone you love, but framing it as “in spite of” carries the connotation that people with these things you don’t like are somehow not worthy of your affection unless you are a Really Good Person who just over looks it. As a friend said to me last night, she doesn’t love her husband in spite of the fact that he’s sick and often depressed. She just loves him. He happens to be depressed sometimes. That is a very important distinction to make because these things are part of who we are. My husband loves me, and I just happen to be a person who has chronic pain, who sometimes self-harms, and who is sometimes depressed.

Most of us in today’s society want to look at a person with mental illness (and here is where I think Hepler accomplished what she set out to do, and why I think it didn’t work) and see The Person I Know, as in, who that person really is, and That Thing That Takes Over Sometimes. This was demonstrated well in the Anders/Justice characterization, but the problem therein lies in the fact that this is a trope, and a harmful one at that. This is not how mental illness works.

We want to believe that mental illness is this horrible, despicable thing that we can separate from our loved ones with mental illness. We can’t, though. It’s not separate. It is so much a part of those of us with mental illness that even the best medical professionals probably couldn’t tell you where the person begins and the illness ends. They are that connected and intertwined. The truth is, for many people, it isn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to them. People with mental illness aren’t suffering from it, they are living with it, coping, managing, and figuring out how it fits into their lives — we are surviving. Mental illness, for those who have it, changes, shapes and affects the ultimate person we are. You can’t just separate out the good things to care about in a person. You love them? Love all of them. Don’t cheapen the person by thinking you get to pick and choose.

When I gave my tumblr url to people who wanted to follow me outside of the Social Justice sphere, I warned them that this was sometimes a very political blog. I am a social justice advocate. I critique popular culture professionally. I work for the rights of disabled people/persons with disabilities. I fight against hospitals for fair practices for people who are marginalized, othered, and treated as if they should have no agency in the decisions that form their lives. I don’t just shut that off. I don’t take things too seriously. I don’t look at parallels like this drawn in popular culture and take that too seriously. I take it as seriously as I need to, because harmful portrayals are more common than helpful ones, and those harmful portrayals sometimes cost the lives of people with disabilities. Is it personal? You betcha. That doesn’t make it any less important.

If my advocacy is something you would rather not see, there is a convenient “unfollow” button up in the corner. You are welcome to use it.

(Cross-Posted)

I will have to go with Anders, and I say this as a person who almost can NOT resist clicking that little heart icon every time it pops up. I have completed the Anders romance more times that I have completed the others combined.

My issues with the Anders Romance have almost nothing to do with Anders as a character, his actions, or how I feel about him in-game at all. Once again my criticism comes down to mostly writing and game mechanics.

I love the Anders Romance. I find it beautifully tragic in all the best ways. I love the way that he is overly flowery with his language and feelings towards Hawke. I even enjoy the melowdrama.

What I don’t like is what we don’t get to see, and also some of the tropes that are attached to Anders. This is a lot of area to cover, so I will try to be brief.

Jennifer Brandes Hepler, who wrote Anders for DAII, admits that she was trying to create a real world parallel using magic that demonstrates the dynamics of relationships with a person who struggles with mental illness. I think this was successful and not in his portrayal. You get to see someone who loves a person with mental illness (assuming that we accept this metaphor Hepler was trying to achieve) trying to come to terms with that person’s illness. But isn’t that always the way we see mental illness portrayed? Through the eyes of the Really Great People who deign to love them IN SPITE of their mental illness? Those fantastic and generous people who would tolerate and love a person above all their flaws. I mean look how hard it is to love a person with mental illness!

No.

I would like to see a game portrayal of a person with mental illness who is loved for just being them. I would love to see a pop-culture portrayal, at all, that can show that the mentally ill (or other people with disabilities) as being full people, and have their disabilities not be an issue.

I’ve seen some really great people address the issue of their Hawke loving Anders above everything, but still, it always feels tinged with “I love him even though…”.

Additionally, the Anders romance is designed into the crux of the end-game. A mentally ill person does an incredible act of violence, and as I’ve written before, the conflation of people with mental illness and acts of violence is one of the greatest — pardon the terminology — injustices in pop culture with regards to the mentally ill. The idea that Anders and Justice would merge to have this goal isn’t what bothers me (I quite unpopularly support what he does end-game from a SJ standpoint), it’s the adding of the element that we are meant to read him as mentally ill that does.

BioWare has a deep problem with this issue. They are fond of their characters who do things that are unspeakable because they are “crazy” when there was no reason to ever bring their mental state into question. Often these characters (such as Loghain, Meredith, and Orsino, just to name a few) have enough reason to do what they did without making them “paranoid” or “crazy” or “insane” or any other incredibly ableist term we see thrown at these people. I for one don’t think that what Anders did end-game was the act of a mentally unstable person. I’ve written before that Anders made logical and calculated decision because he was suffering under institutionalized oppression.

I think the greatest thing that bothers me about the Anders romance is everything we don’t get to see. We meet a mage in the beginning of the game who is, yes broken, but who is doing reasonably well with his situation. By Act III he is in a state and a half of depression, anxiety, and is withdrawing from Hawke. If you rivalmance him, he becomes aggressive and easily agitated. What we don’t see, and instead have to read in the codices, is what happens to get him from point A to point B. I am not sure why this angle was glossed over in the game clean up, and it could have been handled better with a few more conversation options. But there are a lot of gaps in Anders’ personality that we have to fill in ourselves, and what this causes is the gut reaction many people have being “Well, clearly he went nuts and blew up a Chantry”.

That’s not what happened, though. Also, a person doesn’t need to be mentally ill to do something shocking and violent and morally upsetting. We see this every day in our modern life.

I think that is what disturbs viscerally about the Anders romance is that we are lead to believe that you either love him in spite of his mental illness (instead of accepting it as a part of the whole person), or he is a dog to be put down because his particular brand of crazy means he’s too dangerous to be allowed to live. Both of these are incredibly damaging to actual people living their lives with mental illness every day. I know the intent behind writing Anders the way he was, but honestly, it comes off slightly as caregiver porn, and frankly, the case that Justice (the element meant to be portrayed as the mental illness) isn’t what ultimately drives Anders to do what he did. This was always inside Anders. Justice just gave him the drive, and possibly the power boost, to do it. This makes this conflation incredibly damaging and dangerous to the mentally ill. It isn’t like the mentally ill aren’t stripped of their autonomy all the time because they are deemed too dangerous to exist with the “normal” people. Oh, wait, that actually happens all the time.

I can not accept a spirit of Justice/Vengeance as a neat stand-in for mental illness just as I can’t stand the dichotomous way that we are meat to view St. Hawke for loving him or murderknifing him in the back (or abandoning him, which I think is the most cruel option of all, but that is my opinion). It’s the same way that I can not possibly excuse Loghain’s actions as a war criminal, and refuse to exonerate Meredith just because they threw in that ridiculous idol as a plot device. People don’t need mental illness to do unspeakable and shocking, often violent things. All of these characters had legitimate reasons for the choices they made. Some of them were horrendous reasons, but none of that needed to be connected with mental illness.

Least of all Anders’ grab for freedom and release from oppression and abuse for all marginalized people like him.

So, I guess in conclusion, I love Anders, I love romancing him, but I hate the way the romance plays out. The parallel fell flat and in many ways, incredibly offensive to me.

I am expecting some real laughs for this one, but this thought is completely based on a random in-game bug that happened to me, where the game put me into a friendmance with Sebastian even though my Hawke was already in a friendmance with Anders.

My favorite love interest at the time of this writing is Sebastian.

It’s pretty basic, really, my reasoning.

As much as I complained about it while playing the game, I like the idea of a nearly unattainable LI. It amused me.

There are many, many things that I dislike about The Prince of Starkhaven. Most of those things are because of the brilliant writing that took place with Sebastian in the very limited scope that we get to see him. He privilege just rolls off of him, and it’s a fantastic way to look at the ways that privilege denying affects us.

There are so many things about Sebastian that I just vehemently object to, and so many times my Hawke wanted to chuck him off the Wounded Coast for being such a privileged douche. Even the privilege she could deal with, but his glaring reluctance to recognize it was just infuriating beyond belief.

That being said, the romance option with him, while woefully underwritten and not fleshed out well at all, has got to be my favorite at this writing. Of all the other companions over the games who are options, Sebastian is nearly unobtainable. Sebastian has a seedy past, and he’s doing to repenting thing. He has a conviction about relationships and sex that he is sticking to, and he’s not going to sway on it. The same steadfastness that aggravates me to no end on him as a party companion, makes me respect him tremendously as a love interest in-game.

Something I applaud BioWare for is their attempts at diversity. While I do not personally believe in waiting until marriage to consummate a relationship, I have a lot of respect for people who do. Something that is a goal of mine is supporting people in their sexual choices so long as everyone involved is consenting and no one is being harmed. While some of your companions in both DA games will bed your PC easily, and others willingly with time, Sebastian is unwavering in his oath of celibacy. I find that slightly beautiful.

I realize that a lot of it is probably due to Sebastian being a DLC character and not a full party member, and that is something else that irritates me about him, because he adds a lot to the party dynamic, IMO. In my case, the romance with Sebastian glitched, as in I didn’t initiate it, and my Hawke was living with Anders at the time, but when it did, I had to explore it more.

I find Sebastian’s sexual choices to be admirable, even if he is a raging jerk most of the time. In fact, I think part of the appeal is because of his overall personality and waffling (sorry, couldn’t help it) nature. This is one thing he is resolute about. I like the awkward flirting, and the gentle reminders that he has vows to keep. Even if it is religiously driven (and there is nothing wrong with this, apart from my hatred of the Andrastian chantry situation in Thedas), it is his commitment to keep. It is HIS choice to make, and he makes it and stands by it. It allows you to pursue him and get to know him while leaving sex completely out of the question, which for some people, is a refreshing place to be in a relationship.

Consensual sexual choices are valid. I fully support the choice to sleep with as many willing partner who are able to consent to it as a person wants, as well as the choice to abstain (so long as one isn’t lorded as being superior). We all have our reasons for making the choices that we do, and I certainly do not have many parallels with Sebastian’s, but I have a respect for the fact that a non-sexual romance was offered in DA2. It made the game a touch more realistic to me. We have a beautiful diversity of romance choices, and each character brings a little something to that aspect of the game. I feel that a non-sexually based romance rounds that out just a little more.

Now then, moving forward. My least favorite character is Zevran.

Zevran is an assassin, he is witty, he is even charming. I have had playthroughs where my Warden really did not like him and was very uncomfortable around him (Kahrin), and I have had playthroughs where my character adored him to bits (my Tabris and my Aeducan, actually, really liked him).

The things I dislike about Zevran are the tropes that seem to swim around his character.

First of all, and most grating to me, is that Zevran was portrayed to us as the only homosexual option for a male warden in DAO. Ever hear the so-called ‘joke’ that ‘it’s not gay if it’s an elf’? This is representative with what we are given here. Whether intentionally or not, because I often will give BioWare writers some benefit of the doubt, they gave us a rather harmful dichotomy when presenting the two male LIs for the game.

You have Alistair, who is a conventionally idealized man. He’s tall, and brawny, and you are meant to find him attractive according to traditional ideas of what a man should look like. As the heterosexual LI for female Wardens, he is read as the very epitome of manliness. He’s a warrior! He hits things with a shield! Rawr! He’s tough! He’s also as white as the day is long and we all know that White is Right.

Zevran is lithe and lean and has long hair. He dances around and stabs things with daggers and darts behind his enemies. He wears a skirt! These are not criticisms, but if we examine what these things seem to emphasize in his character it borders on a disturbing message about the portrayal of performing masculine.

The other thing that bothers me about Zevran is that he falls directly into the exotified Other category of race. He’s got that dreamy accent, ambiguously Latin, and it could be Spanish or Italian, it’s fairly open to interpretation. He calls you tesoro, and amore. We all know that Latin Men are the Sexiest ever! I feel like Zevran is hypersexualized — he routinely makes commentary in the vein of his ‘anything goes’ sentiment — and that his accent and foreignness is added in an attempt to be more racially diverse. What ends up happening is that Zevran begins to read like a stereotype that is harmful. What they have effectively done is to make him the Exotic Other.

Zevran is also the son of a sex worker, and has admitted to doing work that is equated with sex work. So, essentially, the only non-hetero choice for a male warden is a Latin, former sex working elf. Please tell me that I don’t have to tell you why I find this portrayal problematic.

As a character I find Zevran fantastic. I like him. He’s funny, and the way he is introduced to the game is nothing if not amusing. His open brashness is endearing (Shut up, Kahrin, he’s cool and we do like him), and he is incredibly devoted, not just as a LI, but if you friend path him. Again, like I said, it is the way that Zevran is presented to us, and not the character himself, that I object to. In an effort to present us with a variation on race, class, and sexuality, BioWare kinda mangled it and shoved all of these things into one near-caricature.

(Cross-Posted)

Thank you to Whuffie for the screencap.

This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.

The best and most lovably grumptastic little brother anywhere.

As an older sister of a young man who was an absolute PAIN IN MY ARSE until we were adults, I have to go with that lovable younger brother and all-around adorable grump, Carver Hawke.

I have absolutely adored many characters from the DA universe, and had my fair share of fangirl squee moments over snarky blonds and disgraced nobles, and even cheered at the appearance of broken templars and fawned over heavy brogues. Hands down, though, I find Carver to be the most well-developed character we see, which is pretty impressive for how much we don’t get to see of this woefully under-used companion. Let’s face it, Carvers have a more than 66% death rate, and that is if you are not a monster* who lets him die in the Deep Roads.

Very rarely, if ever, do we start out with a companion who is not only not neutral to you as the PC, but who hates your stinking guts when we first meet him. At the game’s inception, Carver does not like you. Not one lick. He rarely misses a chance to grouse at you. He hardly ever has anything nice to say about you, and he certainly isn’t going to hold back his deeper thoughts to spare your feelings. Yet, during all of this, we get to see light touches and moments of steadfast loyalty to you, the PC sibling. He might hate you, and he might sometimes wish horrible things upon you, but no one is entitled to inflict those horrible things on you other than him.

BioWare nailed the sibling dynamic right there, and IMO, portrayed that better than any other relationship I have seen come to light over three games and multiple DLCs.

Carver doesn’t instantly like you when you give him things, either. No, sirree. You have to work your poverty-stricken arse off to get him to thank you for the letters from his namesake, and even then, it’s an awkward moment of begrudging acceptance of feelings. But if you work at it, you eventually see him warm to you, ever-so-subtly in his own way. Still? He can’t seem to manage to tell you he loves you out loud. It’s incredibly powerful to me, as an older sister with a brother who still has trouble not deflecting emotions with snark (and also me as a sister who has trouble not criticizing every thing about him).

I also love the way that it isn’t easy to get Carver’s approval one way or another. He has hidden amounts of approval or disapproval for every action you take, and it really takes some intense meta to lock it one way or the other. Just when you think that grumpy brother of yours is going to back you up, he suddenly muses over how stupid you’re being — and doesn’t hold back in telling you so, even if it is unpopular. Then, in the middle of trying to talk to him, he throws his grief of his missing twin at you in a rare moment of obvious vulnerability. Carver’s blunt honesty is one of my favorite things about him.That, and the way he calls you out for showboating or needlessly drawing attention to yourself when his life experience thus far has taught him that these are not good for self-preservation. It is such a younger brother thing to do.

Carver starts out insecure, resentful of you and your clout as you play Hawke, and endlessly searching for a way to make himself stand out apart from Hawke. The fulcrum of your relationship with him is the moment you decide whether or not to take him to the Deep Roads on your expedition. He wants to go. He’s vocal about his desire to be useful and to help the family — because above all else, Carver values his family even if he rarely manages to say it. Choosing to take him with you validates him as a person, but refusing to seems to do the opposite. It shows, at least to him, that Hawke has no regard for Carver’s wants, that they are not important enough to honor.

This is where I think the breaking point happens for him, in that it is the only way I can see Carver crushed enough to resort to the one place that, to me, seems so wildly out of character for him thus far considering the Hawke family’s background. Turning to the templars. Becoming the very thing he was trying to protect his family from all these years. Seeing Carver as a templar breaks my heart, because it feels like he has found a place of forced power and can now hold it over Hawke’s head. Hawke wouldn’t validate his worth, so he found a way to get a subtle jab back and prove just how much worth he has. “Look what I did without you, and now you have to respect me, because I have this power over you, a mage.”

Take him with you, and go through what is, for me, one of the most heart-wrenching moments of the entire game, where you have to make the choice to hand him over to the Grey Wardens, and we see a completely different Carver. He also grows, he also comes into his own, but he goes there with the validation that his sibling respected him enough to include him in the expedition, but you also have that moment where Carver realizes that you care if he lives or dies. Seeing his face if you choose that dialogue option just before Stroud takes him away almost seems to be the first moment that Carver realizes your Hawke had actual affection for him.

We don’t get to see what happens to Carver in Act II. This is tragic to me, because this is where he does all of his growth and dynamic changing. Sure, he sides with you no matter what in the end of the game, giving a nod to his deeply-held value that family matters above all else, but how did he get there?. I love that even if you chose the rival path with him, that he still stands by you (because the rival path is far easier to achieve, and still not easy to max out). As a Grey Warden, Carver comes to a feeling of belonging to something greater, and it seems to make him happier as a whole person. I cringe to realize that he’s come to the place by the end of the game where his life as a Warden is the most important thing to him (apart from you, his only remaining immediate family), and I hope that Carver eventually finds something in the Wardens to give him something personal to hold onto as a human being.

Lukas Kristjanson gives us, with very little on-screen time, a character who grows, sometimes begrudgingly, through a gamut of characterization. I am still in the stages of writing a ridiculously fangirlish fan letter thanking him for this. Carver fascinates me as an older sibling who went through a tumultuous relationship with her own younger brother which didn’t come to a place of love and open respect until we lost our father. Carver is written with buckets of potential, and I can see so many opportunities for him to reappear with import flags at the very least in future games. A pipedream of mine would be to see him as a full companion in future games, because every time he appears in a DLC I cheer. His snarkiness and grumpy scowling, combined with a healthy amount of showing off with an obvious need for praise, has endeared him to me endlessly.

Carver Hawke, you are forever my bro. Keep being you, little brother.

*Used in jest, though, I am of the opinion that no one with a heart would do this after they find out it is avoidable! I’m a Carver fangirl. I regret nothing.

We managed to find a screening of Harry Potter here in Seoul that was neither in 3 or 4 D, thank every thing holy, because I had a burning urge to not vomit while watching a movie that I’ve waited quite a while to see.

I was… not disappointed. In fact, I was rather pleasantly surprised. The last two movies, in my opinion, which most people reading here will agree is neither humble nor quiet, have been the truest to the books. The few changes that I noticed really were things that I rather enjoyed. There were things that I found actual improvements. But then again, I found myself to be sort of overly-critical of the last novel as a whole. I always felt like the last book was a bit rushed, could have fleshed some things out more, left some things a little lacking, etc, etc, but that is me, a fan, just wanting more.

I felt like the director did a fantastic job making up for that.

There were things that I had wanted to see more of. I always want more Ginny. Ginny, in my again, not-so-humble-opinion, is terribly underused. For as BAMF-tastic as she was supposed to be in the series, she is mostly relegated to a love interest. That never ceases to irritate me.

Something that made me cheer out loud, and The Guy as well, was Minerva McGonagall’s incredible moment of dueling Professor Snape without so much as breaking a sweat. I love to see badass older women kicking ass. She was amazing.

So, let’s open it up to a bit of discussion. I’m a bit slow on the uptake these days, but I’ll try to get around to responding to everyone! What did you think?

"Uhh... I didn't do it."

[ETA:] Welcome, BioWare Social Network Anders’ Thread peeps! Happy to have you stop by! I am hoping to get to each and every one of you, but I would ask that you please take a peek at my Comments Policy if you are here for the first time. Thanks, Miri! Your check is in the mail!

How far would you go to escape abuse?

How far would you push to ensure that the abuse you had faced never happened to anyone you loved ever again?

Where would you draw the line between your life and the life of someone who was threatening your own?

In my never ending quest to defend (and my slight obsession with the character) Anders from Dragon Age 2, I’ve decided to take a step out onto a limb and discuss some of the reasons that, in addition to finding the lynchpin mage an exceptionally dynamic character, to explain why he makes complete sense to me.

"Sweetheart, I'm not letting anyone lock me up, you included."

Anders, whom I’ve discussed fairly extensively in the past, is one of the most sympathetic characters I’ve encountered in the DA series, much to the surprise of many people when I say this. If you total up the happenstances of the life of an average mage in Thedas, and scoop on a heaping of Anders’ own personal experience with abuse, he becomes someone that I recognize as a person making reasoned decisions to make a calculated escape from an abusive situation. This conflicts wildly with many of the anti-Anders arguments I have encountered dismissing him outright of being simply “crazy” or “manipulative and abusive” himself.

History of Oppression

Mages in Thedas have a long history of forced oppression by the dominant religion of the land, controlled by their Chantry. Magic is seen as a threat to humanity, and those born with the ability to wield magic are stripped of their rights as people as soon as this ability is discovered. In short, magic manifests in children, and those children are taken, often forcibly, from their families to be raised in Chantry-controlled, prison-like fortresses, called Circles, where armed soldiers babysit them to ensure they do not get out of hand.

It is illegal to exist as a mage outside of Circle control in most of Thedas. Anyone skirting this fate is declared an “apostate” and risks being hunted their entire lives. Part of the background of the Hawke family your PC is a member of in DA2 includes this reality, forcing them to often have had to move growing up to dodge the templars hunting them.

Anders, distraught at discovering his former lover, Karl, has been made Tranquil for trying to escape, with a mage Hawke, also an apostate, looking on.

Mages are not allowed to inherit titles, or land, even if they are born to noble families. Mages are strongly discouraged from having relationships, and even marriage requires express permission from the local chantry. A mage who is still being housed by the Circle is not allowed to keep any child born to them, should they have one as the result of an unsanctioned relationship. In Dragon Age: Origins, the healer and senior mage, Wynne, speaks of having her child taken from her under these circumstances. Children born inside the Circle are deemed property of the Chantry.

The Effects of Confinement and Abuse

Anders was a child of twelve when he was taken from his home — bound — to the Circle to be taught. He was still a teenager when he made his first of seven escapes from the Circle in Ferelden, each time being forcibly dragged back by templars who, according to him, were not shy about kicking him and otherwise abusing him in the process.

“Most people enjoy being kicked in the head to be woken up each morning. Me, I’m just so picky.” ~Anders, Dragon Age: Origins Awakening

After one of his escapes and subsequent returns, Anders was restricted to solitary confinement for at least a year, where, as he implies during Dragon Age: Origins Awakening, the only “person” he saw during that time was the tower mouser, Mr. Wiggums. Solitary confinement, being one of the most severe and harsh punishments used in the U.S. prison system, has been well documented to leave lasting medical side effects. It has been considered torture, with people such as former Prisoner of War Senator John McCain recounting how trying the experience was on him. Solitary confinement has been known to cause symptoms associated with the clinical definitions of psychosis in people who had never shown signs before. People with predispositions to mental illness have found their conditions exacerbated. Yet, solitary is used on prisoners in the U.S. routinely, and solitary was used as a reprimand for Anders’ escape attempts. It isn’t a far-fetched conclusion to presume that many of the traits portrayed by Anders in DA2 are connected to both the abuse he experienced at the hand of the Circle and its templars and his time spent in solitary.

Anders is not amused with a demon's offer of aide in the Deep Roads.

Hours a day with no human contact, and people wonder why a mage would agree to allow himself to merge with a spirit.

I suppose my point is that by the time you, as a Hawke, meet up with Anders in Act I of Dragon Age II, it is well established that he has been not only abused, but systematically oppressed, while watching others like himself receiving the same treatment for years. To see that he is ready to fight back in defense of mages everywhere is not a difficult concept to accept for him as a character. That he would accept the offer of a spirit of Justice to merge and reside in side him to aide him is not something I have difficulty understanding.

Parallels to Domestic Abuse

It is interesting to me that Anders’ number of escape attempts totals to seven. According to statistics, it can take an abuse survivor seven to eight times to successfully leave an abusive situation. The period during and immediately following the escape are the most dangerous and hold the potential for flares in violent retribution, one statistic quotes a 75% increase in risk of violence.

Send in the templars…

Many people do not survive their escape attempts, and judging by the arms and armour on templars, the safety of the escaped mages is not foremost in their minds.

Most people need outside assistance to make a clean escape, safely. Looking at Anders’ situation, he would not have succeeded had he not encountered the Hero of Ferelden and/or been conscripted into the Grey Wardens. When the templars come for him this final time, it is clear that he will be hung for the supposed crimes he has committed, even though it is not confirmed that Anders has actually murdered anyone, even his most recent captors. He did, however, defeat many darkspawn (the impending evil in the first two games) by himself, demonstrating what a powerful mage he is.

The Hero of Ferelden, pictured here as the non-white woman at far left, uses the Right of Conscription to save Anders from the Chantry on his final escape.

The Chantry is allowed to decide whether a mage may live or die, or have themselves cut off from their magic, rending them emotionless, or Tranquil, which many mages deem a fate worse than death. In fact, Chantry law states that a mage who has passed the testing that proves they are competent can not be made Tranquil, yet, the law is overlooked if a templar or cleric believes they have enough of a reason.

Mages are not given a voice in their own defense.

Fighting Back

As time as went on, Anders, with some encouragement from Justice, a Spirit of Justice from the realm of dreams, spirits and demons known as the Fade, saw that the problem oppressing mages did not end with his freedom alone.

Foreshadowing what is yet to come, Justice and Anders have several exchanges during the in-game party banter that BioWare is known for that, in retrospect, really give you the groundwork for Anders as many of us have come to know him in Kirkwall.

From in-game dialogue in DA:O Awakening:

• Justice: I understand that you struggle against your oppression, mage.
• Anders: I avoid my oppression. That’s not quite the same thing, is it?
• Justice: Why do you not strike a blow against your oppressors? Ensure they can do this to no one else?
• Anders: Because it sounds difficult?
• Justice: Apathy is a weakness.
• Anders: So is death. I’m just saying.

• Justice: I believe you have a responsibility to your fellow mages.
• Anders: That bit of self-righteousness is directed at me?
• Justice: You have seen oppression and are now free. You must act to free those who remain oppressed.
• Anders: Or I could mind my business, in case the Chantry comes knocking.
• Justice: But this is not right. You have an obligation.
• Anders: Yes, well… welcome to the world, spirit.

• Anders: Are you saying that you could become a demon, Justice?
• Justice: I said no such thing.
• Anders: You said that demons were spirits perverted by their desires.
• Justice: I have no such desires.
• Anders: You must have some desires…
• Justice: I have none! Desist your questions!

• Anders: I apologize, Justice. I didn’t mean to suggest you would become a demon.
• Justice: I should certainly hope not.
• Anders: I just wondered what relation there is between spirits and demons. Demons are a worry to any mage.
• Justice: I do not know what makes demons as they are. Such evil angers me, but I do not understand it.
• Anders: Well, I hope you never come to understand.
• Justice: I as well, mage. More than you could possibly know.

Anders was aware of the reality of the severity of his situation. Following game-lore, a former templar was recruited into the Wardens, and was eventually assigned to follow Anders everywhere he went. After time this lead to the merging of Anders and Justice, similar to a demon possession, except that spirits are not demons, and presumably the merging could be amicable.

Anders and Justice, going V for Vengeance against templars.

What was not expected was Anders’ rage at the injustice against mages fueling the spirit of Justice and turning him into a force of Vengeance. People facing abuse will sometimes reach out at escalating levels of resources whom they think can help them.

Anders enlists help from anyone, even people who don't like him. "Yes, why don't we insult the people coming to help. That will work out wonderfully!"

This happened with Anders. First, he fought back only for himself. Then, he joined an underground network of mages who worked to free apostates. Then, he wrote manifestos decrying the oppression of mages by the Chantry. He reached out to friends to help him. He tried reasoning with higher and higher levels of officials with the power to enact the change he wanted to see. Time and again he hit wall after wall, repeatedly being either told that mages were dangerous and deserved their fate, or, in the case of the Grand Cleric, that the best solution was to sit back quietly and wait for the Maker to sort out the answer.

Becoming more and more desperate, Anders reveals to Hawke that the templars are becoming more and more aggressive towards him every day. It is clear that the bribes that Varric, another companion, and Hawke throw around are all that keep Anders from the Gallows (Kirkwall’s Circle) altogether.

Finally, Anders seems to hit a wall where he is certain that no one is going to aid him, and that he is either going to die at the hands of oppressors, or he is going to die fighting for the freedom of everyone like him. He realizes that there is no room for middle ground when he is fighting for his survival.

Oops. The Chantry has an accident in Act III and loses its... parts.

Like so many people who have faced prolonged abuse, Anders chooses to fight back, and he strikes hard. The human race is not capable of giving up on survival, and if given the choice between our own lives and the life of an attacker, there are people who will choose to fight back to protect their own. This is not to say that everyone will do so, or that it is or that his actions were even the correct response.

But it is a response I understand, fully.

The idea that someone would strike out at their abuser in a way that would ensure that said abuser would not be able to come after them again is not so hard to wrap my head around. This is probably why I was able to not only side with Anders in my playthrough, but probably why I find myself, still, defending his actions, all across the internet and in real life. I’ve witnessed Anders called cold, calculating. I’ve heard him referred to as manipulative and even crazy. These are some of the kinder things I’ve heard and read.

Really, Anders was a survivor. He meant to shove back against those who have worked to remind him his whole life that he is less-than, and wanted a world where no one else would have to suffer as he did. This is the mind of a victim pushed to surviving.

Photo credits to Miri1984 and Twist_Shimmy of the People of Thedas Community of Dreamwidth for screen caps not belonging to me. Because they are awesome.

I don’t recall a ton of pop culture that deals specifically with the politics of being mixed race or presenting differently than you identify. It is one of the reasons that when I picked up and played Dragon Age II that I was so startled and taken with some of the missions surrounding the character Feynriel.

Feynriel is a half-human/half-elf young man that you meet when his mother is distressed because he has come into magic in a way that has caused him to possibly become a danger to himself. A funny thing about Dragon Age is that the writers, most notably I imagine being David Gaider who wrote the novels where I noticed this lore most heavily played upon, have given us a situation where a person born of mixed-race origins will always present one way. In this case, a child born of one human and one elf parent will always present as human, and in a world lacking DNA science, there is no way to tell otherwise. Dragon Age provides us through the course of two novels and three games with two fairly prominent characters who depict this background. One I will not spoil for you if you are not aware of it or do not consider it canon (though to me it is completely obvious that this is in fact exactly his lineage and quite intentional). The other is Feynriel. They do, however present very differently.

Both are men, and one is the very picture of a stereotypically “ideal” looking man, while Feynriel looks far more elven. He has the narrower features, flatter forehead and more shallow set eyes of the elves in DAII. He is more fair and thin. I even found his ears to be slightly pointed. I found it interesting that both characters seemed to prove my basic idea that no mixed race person will every look exactly a certain way.

I wish that BioWare had taken a slightly less Caucasian approach to presenting a face of a mixed-race person, but in my mind the variation in features provides a little bit with me to work with that I might almost be willing to let that pass. Almost.

Feynriel’s second largest problem is that he doesn’t feel like he fits in anywhere. When he lives among humans he feels as though he stands out as obviously an elf (a point I found odd given that half-human/half-elf children should always look human, until I thought about it more). Considering that elves experience extreme levels of racial hatred and discrimination this is understandably an uncomfortable place for him to have lived his entire life. His first largest problem being that he is also a mage, subjecting him to hatred and fear above that status. Feynriel wants to live among the Dalish Elves, a nomadic clan of elves, and when (if) he is there, despite finding some help with his magical woes, he feels, again, that he stands out due to his human parentage.

Wow. Can I relate.

Feynriel made me feel a little like I could relate to that situation. Not quite ever belonging in one place or to any one people because no matter where you were someone was going to see you as the other. Additionally, his situation made me re-examine the thoughts that pounded instantly into my head when I watched his woes unfold before me. My initial reaction of “Hey! He looks awfully elf!” really hit home when I realized that that assumption is the very thing that I get upset with people for. I loathe people for telling me that I look very white, dismissing my Native background, and I had just done the same thing, albeit to a pixelated character, but done it all the same.

Chally at Zero at the Bone has written many great things about this topic, and I recommend this part three of a series she has written: The Privileges and Pains of Passing.

Horrible acts of violence, when linked to mental illness in pop culture, perpetuate the stigmatization of people with mental illness in real life as potentially violent. They give audiences the idea that it is OK to strip the rights of persons with disabilities because we could, at any moment, become a danger to the public, even if we never have before. All of the mages in Kirkwall were deemed in need of control because they were all going crazy, another stereotype of the mentally ill. Eventually their deaths were all called for, because they were deemed too much of a threat.

Read the rest here!

Also:  Access This

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