I’ve seen a lot of talk about Fenris and Anders being more similar than either of them realize, except for their political stances. But you know what, the more I think about their characterization the more I find myself realizing and appreciating their differences–particularly, in the one thing that’s supposedly their main similarity: being runaways and rebelling against oppression.

Anders is practically a born rebel. He was a rebel long before Justice, long before he was even an adult. More than a decade before the story of da2 starts he was just a frightened 12 year old who was dragged to the Circle in chains, and he responded to this by swimming across a lake and evading Templars for months. And he showed the devil’s persistence as he got older, escaping over and over even in the face of repeated failure. Not even being thrown into solitary for a year stopped him from escaping again once he got the chance. Not only does Anders seem uniquely suited to rebellion, he seems uncrushable, and practically incapable of sitting down and shutting up in the long term, even if it was save him a lot of anguish.

Fenris… is about the opposite. While we don’t know much about his early life, I highly doubt Danarius would have selected a rebellious slave to be his bodyguard (since, you know, a rebellious slave in this position might kill him). Leto almost definitely yearned for freedom for himself, but he was (according to World of Thedas) quiet and unassuming for the most part. He gained freedom for his family via the least rebellious route imaginable, on Danarius’s own terms. And the memory loss only enhanced that. For years, he thought of nothing but following orders. When he escape, it wasn’t even intentional on his part, and he was ready to go back to slaughtering on Danarius’s command in a heartbeat after months of freedom. Freedom was practically forced upon him. 

And I think this causes a bit of a disconnect in audience perception. He’s so angry when Hawke meets him, so certain of himself and his principles, so firm in his independence… or is he?

If you romance Anders, he says “You’re the best thing in my life, but there are things more important than my life.” And he means it. Anders, for all his emotional dependency on Hawke, has goals outside of Hawke and will make decisions (aka chantryboom and being a part the whole mage underground) in spite of them, even in a romance.

If you romance Fenris, he says, “Nothing could be worse than living without you.” On the friendship path before the final battle, he will say you are the only friend he has ever had. These lines sound… worrying to my ears. They don’t sound like the lines of an independent person with goals outside of Hawke. 

In fact, Fenris’s independence and resistance–after more than six years of freedom–crumbles in an instant if you tell him you won’t help him fight Danarius. He could fight, he could decide he’d rather die than be a slave again. Instead, he just bows his head and follows. 

But this is not to rag on Fenris, or call him weak. He’s had to go through a whole journey to achieve the ability to be angry, and to fight back. It’s a pretty damn good plot, and it means he has a different kind of strength to grow your own wings like that instead of starting out with them. But my point is the contrast.

Anders lives and breathes freedom and independence; Fenris barely made it to this point. Anders rebels; Fenris survives. They both have a whole set of differences in character that run deeper than their political beliefs, and honestly this post just is talking about ONE of those differences.

This is a brilliant observation, one that I’ve made too but I don’t write meta things well. And this distinction between rebelling and surviving is why I have trouble getting behind this idea, or hope, that in DA4 (or somewhere down the line) we’ll see Fenris leading a slave rebellion in Tevinter.

Fenris isn’t a rebel. Fenris is a survivor. And that by default makes him more of a loner and not really a LEADER. Would he participate in a rebellion? Would he help those involved? Absolutely. Would he lead it himself? Would he make himself that symbol? No. I don’t see that lining up with Fenris’ character.

He didn’t rebel against Danarius. His freedom was a fluke, a mistake, and like OP said it was practically forced upon him. Fenris’ freedom was completely reactionary. He saw what he did to the Fog Warriors, panicked, and ran. It was hardly a conscious choice to rebel.

Leading a rebellion, making yourself that symbol of freedom and hope? That’s Anders. They have so many similarities, but what freedom means to them is completely different. Anders’ idea of freedom and how to get there is much more proactive than Fenris’. I don’t see Fenris as being someone who in any way would want to be a leader, a symbol. All these people looking to Fenris to lead them, to save them? I think that kind of pressure might actually crush Fenris.

And like OP said, that’s not in any way implying Fenris is weak. Survival takes strength. Just being able to walk (or run) away at all takes strength. Allowing himself to get close to Hawke (if you romance Fenris), after everything he’s been through, takes a massive amount of strength.

Anders and Merrill have an interesting relationship: one of the things they absolutely do not agree on is the spirit/demon issue. Anders believes there’s a clear dichotomy between the two; Merrill disagrees. I’m not getting into the Dalish beliefs vs. Chantry teachings and who’s right about it here.

But it’s always surprised me how vehement Anders is about the issue, how absolutely adamant he is about the distinction. It’s a level above the kind of self righteous dickishness he’s occasionally prone to; he speaks in terms of complete certainty until Merrill shuts him down and even then, he just brings it up again later, undeterred.

We know that Anders was a devout Andrastian as a child. I think that, despite his later opposition to Chantry on the mage issue, his faith still shape his world view (for instance, his manifesto essentially reframes and recontextualizes verses from the Chant of Light, the text central to Andrastian religion, to argue for mage liberation). I’ve seen suggestions that his absolute view on the spirit/demon issue is simply part of the Chantry beliefs he’s internalized over the years. I’ve never been entirely satisfied by that explanation; it seemed strange to me that he would be so stubbornly convinced of something simply because he picked it up at Kinloch Hold, when, as we know, he constantly questions many of the things he’s been told about magic by the Circle/Chantry. And, then I was going through Codex entries on wiki when I ran into this:

In context of his specialization as a spirit healer, Anders’ absolute adamance suddenly makes perfect sense. This is not a throwaway belief he’s unwittingly picked up at the Circle; following that clearly established distinction has saved him from possession every single time he’s reached into the Fade to draw on power for healing. Of course, it has solidified into unshakable conviction; of course he’s baffled when Merrill refuses to acknowledge something, that to him ,is a truth that literally saves his life on a daily basis. Which is not to say that this excuses, in any way, shape or form, how he treats Merrill, but it’s always nice to have context for a character’s actions.

I wondered whether some of you fellow Dragon Age lovers could help me clear a couple of things up. So, if you don’t mind, here are the questions I would like to find answers to.

1. Was it ever mentioned in game whether Anders had actually passed his Harrowing? He wasn’t made Tranquil after half a dozen escape attempts - that’s what we know, but was it because it would have been against the law to perform the Rite on him or simply because Irving didn’t think it was necessary (“First Enchanter Irving believed that Anders, however reckless, posed no true threat” as it said in the Wiki article)?

2. Is it possible for a Mage to bind a spirit to a non-Mage volunteer? To somehow enter the Fade together with this person, find a spirit and do the thing? We know that a demon can possess a non-Mage (like in the case of Sophia Dryden) and that a spirit can inhabit a dead body (Kristoff and Justice). But in both cases the process of possession was fulfilled without the hosts’ consent and was not directed.

So, this is it, and I would really appreciate any thoughts on the matter from whoever feels like sharing their theories :)

Meanwhile, in an alternate universe where Hawke listens to nothing Anders says…

One of the most common charges leveled against Anders is that he is selfish. Is he? Does any single thing he does benefit him personally in any way? I suppose that living with Hawke is a nice perk, and it beats living in Darktown, but if they are lovers, Hawke is benefiting just as much as he is by having him there. But that isn’t what his detractors are talking about. They are referring to his companion quests, specifically Justice.

He lies to Hawke in the most blatant and obvious manner imaginable in order to enlist his or her aid. Who does he believe will benefit? All mages. The actual beneficiary does not matter at all. If we are talking about Anders’s motivations, we must restrict ourselves to his expectations, not the eventual consequences. Anders himself does not expect to live, so he is not doing this for his own sake.

All of the companions make demands. Oddly enough, the only two who are accused of gross and unforgivable self-interest are the ones who will not directly benefit from their quests.

Anders: (no quests benefit him directly)

Aveline: (all quests benefit her directly)

Fenris: (all quests benefit him directly)

Isabela: (all quests benefit her directly)

Merrill: (1 quest benefits her, 2 quests do not)

Sebastian: (2 quests benefit him, 1 quest does not)

Varric: (all quests benefit him directly)

Notice a pattern? 

I am convinced that if Anders had asked Hawke to solve some personal crisis for him, such as killing a group of templars who were about to invade his clinic, he would have been instantly forgiven.

Perhaps the problem is that Anders does not ask for his own sake. The others involve Hawke in personal matters, but Anders’s requests aren’t personal. They’re just important. Perhaps people feel that the impersonal nature of Anders’s quests is a sign that he is not personally invested in the relationship, that his feelings for Hawke are less, or not genuine. That he is using Hawke.

If that is the case, well, that’s just the way it is. No one can force another to understand. Empathy must come from within.

That is what Anders is. He is literally made of issues. They comprise a huge portion of his consciousness and he lives with them every moment of every day. Those things he does want for himself - love, life, and liberty - Hawke already supplies, so his personal demands are already being met. He wants nothing else.

TL;DR: Anders is not using Hawke. He is trusting Hawke with nothing less than his hopes and dreams.

This is all I’m going to post to this blog today. It has been bothering me for days, and it’s a relief to finally write it out. Thanks for enduring the rant.

CONFESSION: I love Merrill and I can’t stand gaining rivalry with her (it’s just too cruel), but I can’t stand the eluvian and her obsession with it. I’m terrified that her research into it will bring her even more harm than it already has.

Here’s the thing about Merrill, though: She knows all about that. The reason you gain rivalry when you try to warn her, or tell her what’s best for her, is because she already knows and doesn’t appreciate being condescended to or being told that reclaiming her people’s history through any means necessary is crazy or isn’t important. Pretty sure she realizes how dangerous it is, because of the loss of Tamlen and (depending on your origin) Mahariel; she isn’t stupid. Don’t mistake her naivete with regards to human culture as her being naive about everything: What she needs to know, she knows.

She shows a keener awareness of the danger she’s putting herself than Anders, simply by saying to him that no spirit is safe, benevolent or demonic. She knows she’s dealing with a demon, and she knows that demon will very likely possess her, which is why she doesn’t do anything unless Hawke agrees to help, because in the end, if she’s possessed, she knows she needs to die. Everyone is so apt to blame Merrill for everything that happens to Marethari and her clan, but that’s all on Marethari.

Marethari didn’t believe in Merrill; she didn’t believe Merrill could possibly understand the danger she put herself in, and it was irresponsible and foolish of Marethari to allow that demon to possess her, because she abandoned her clan and put Merrill in a position where her clan would blame her for Marethari’s death, which can and does (in some instances) lead to the destruction of the entire Sabrae clan. Not because Merrill decided to deal with a demon (though that is the catalyst to Marethari’s stupidity), but because Marethari decided that Merrill wasn’t capable of making her own decisions (and mistakes, if you want to look at it that way).

So yeah, eff this crap saying that Merrill needs to be protected or that she doesn’t realize the danger she’s in. She knows, she doesn’t care, because what’s important is that if she could have reclaimed even the smallest piece of her people’s history, the sacrifice of her life would have been worth it to her. And she doesn’t give a halla’s backside if you like it or not.

/rant

I need to bring up a little aspect of the mage issue that itches at me constantly but doesn’t get nearly enough attention.

Can we talk about how utterly heinous it is that children (both mage children and the children of mages) are ripped from their parents’ arms and taken away with the understanding that those families will neither see nor hear from each other again?  This is sanctioned.  The Chantry is permitted by law to kidnap children.

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One of the things I love about Anders’ characterization, especially in his interactions with Merrill, is how, for all that he considers himself a radical and a revolutionary, he still totally buys in to…

As the game progresses he loses his faith in the chantry. In party banter with Sebastian [Act III] he actually tells Seb that he doesn’t believe the Maker will ever come back and that Seb should give it up. He may still admire Andraste but he certainly doesn’t have that much “faith” in the Chantry or the Maker.

Now, what he’s upset with Merrill about is more of the usage of demons. The classifications of the spirits of the fade do not come from the chantry itself, rather it comes from other mages. Example. How he is viewing blood magic is a common social problem where a lot of mages use it as a gateway to demons. That’s why it retains social stigma, while still having some of the chantry lore.

Another thing to consider is that Anders does not buy into the Chantry version of events. When he meets Corypheus in Legacy DLC he doesn’t believe he is real because that story of the magisters he thought was propaganda against mages by the Chantry.

Here’s proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXOSBpuX6Mo

Those are valid points, but not believing in the Chantry doesn't equate to Anders not being a believer all the same.  There are lots of non-practicing religious people who disagree with the institution but not the faith itself; most of the Catholics I know fall under this category because they dislike the Vatican's way of leading their religion, but disagreeing with the Vatican and the papacy doesn't impede them from being good Catholics all the same.

The Chant of Light expressly states that the Maker abandoned mankind because they committed one to many grievous sins against Him--the Tevinter Magisters entreating upon the Fade and creating darkspawn and the Blights, the death of Andraste--so it's not unreasonable for Anders to believe that there's no point in trying to win back the Maker's favor since it's unlikely that He'll ever return to the people of Thedas so long as the Qunari, Dalish, and dwarves have their own religious systems in place that won't cede to the Chantry's overarching message. His continuing admiration of Andraste, and his repeated drawing of parallels between himself and Her further emphasizes his genuine belief in Her teachings.  He sees himself as the same sort of savior for the mages as Andraste was for the slaves of the ancient Imperium.  Anders frequently cites the Canticle of Transfigurations in his arguments against the Chantry and the Circle because he views magic as a gift--this is expressly stated in Transfigurations 1:3:

Anders likens the plight of mages to that of slaves more than once, so to him Andraste and the Maker would be appalled by the Chantry's handling of magic.  If you want more proof of this, go back to Awakening and don't be Anders's friend.  He'll tell you exactly how he feels about the Chantry's view of mages. Any information Anders (or anyone, really) has of the Fade comes from scholars and observations made by members of the Circle of Magi. The Dalish don't keep records in that way, and they have a different set of beliefs in place that are in direct conflict with how the Chantry teaches about magic, mages, and the Beyond (what the Dalish call the Fade).  Anders is intelligent and well-educated, but his education has not only been an academic one because he was educated by the Circle, and he went to the Circle already holding many of Andrastianism's core values due to his upbringing. Also, Gaider says there may be new classifications of demons introduced in DA3 (specifically, despair demons have been mentioned thusfar, and it's implied that that's what Cole is in Asunder).  That means there are more creatures of the Fade than the Chantry teaches, as the five varieties we've been shown thus far can be labeled as "sins": rage hunger, pride, sloth, and desire (which is a compound of the two Christian sins of envy and lust).   That aside, the Dalish don't have any sort of dichotomy for spirits and demons and hold all beings from the Beyond as being dangerous and ultimately self-serving, and that flies in the face of Chantry-based teachings of "good spirits" and "evil demons".  The Dalish themselves don't even have any expressly anti-blood magic feelings, as most of Sabrae clan's issues with Merrill lie in disagreement with her mission to fix the Eluvian rather than her using blood magic to do so.   Merrill is living proof that blood magic isn't inherently evil, and this is further backed up by Jowan in Origins and by several excerpts from World of Thedas.  Anders's issues with blood magic (which are conveniently hand-waved if he specialized in it in Awakening) lies firmly within the construct set up around it by the Chantry, which, ironically and hypocritically enough, use blood magic to leash their mages.  This is confirmed in Asunder. World of Thedas also confirms that blood magic, if used responsibly, is, as Merrill says, magic like any other.  It's just coming from a different battery.  It's also been implied that blood magic can cause more powerful spellcasting, so banning it is in perfect keeping with the Chantry's overall goal of keeping mages under their heel because it ties their power to lyrium, which the Chantry already has a supply of for the Templar Order.  Lyrium is toxic to anyone, but especially to mages, so it makes perfect sense to try an encourage mages to use it rather than some other fuel for their magic.  It's just another leash. As far as Anders's view of Corypheus in Legacy goes, he also backpedals and says he needs to reconsider the Chantry's version of history once it's more or less clear that Corypheus is in fact an ancient Magister.  

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Actually, the reason I adore Anders is because of the things he does, not in spite of them.

It took me quite a while to wrap my head around it- on my first playthrough when he blew up the Chantry I ached.  I actually went and cried a little, then went to bed with an ache in my chest.  I couldn’t believe what he’d done, that he’d forced Hawke’s hand like this, and actually asked Hawke to kill him.

But then I thought, and thought, and thought some more.

I thought about the fact that mages have been imprisoned, lobotomized, or killed for one thousand years.

That’s a one with three fucking zeros.

There are very, very few worldviews in our universe that have subjugated/denigrated/de-humanized/tortured/murdered a specific group of people for ten centuries- not surprisingly, most of them are religions.

But consider this:

Many of the templars in-game that you fight come right out and say “They’re not really people.”

Mages can’t get married.  They can’t have children, or families.  If they have children, the children are taken away and they never see them again.  If they fall in love, that person becomes emotional collateral and you’ll do anything, anything, as long as the templars don’t hurt them.

They’re ripped away from their parents as soon as their magic manifests, or in Anders’ case, thrown away because they are “cursed.”

They are told, over and over again from the time they arrive at the Circle and throughout their lifetime that their very existence is a sin.  They are the next thing to demons.

They are put through a ritual designed to test their willpower and ability when they are little more than children, pushed into the Fade where the magical equivalent of a dinnerbell has been rung, and a demon waiting to possess them.  If they fail they will be killed.  If they take too long they will be killed.  There are men with swords standing by and waiting to kill them.

And all of that at the ripe old age of 17-18. 

They are subject to the whims of their often sadistic jailers, who will beat them, rape them, and try to provoke them into becoming possessed simply to have an excuse to cut them down.

They are rarely allowed outside- no sunshine, no fresh air, no running in the fields or playing ball games.  No frolicking in the snow, or ice skating, or even standing in the rain.  They are kept inside, under guard, where their existence is regulated from sunup to sunset- classes, meals, and sleep, all under the watchful eyes of the guards who are there to kill you if you fuck up.  Some of the mages are five or six years old.

They are forced into crowded quarters with 20-30 people (remember all the bunkbeds?) and no privacy.  No doors on the bathrooms, no closed areas for bathing or taking a piss or a crap, no privacy for dressing or masturbating or sleeping or kissing your girlfriend or boyfriend or sex.  Even the Harrowed mages are crowded into rooms without doors, where three beds, separated by a wall or a bookshelf mock the convention of privacy.

They are given no autonomy.  As Emile says, he’s never had a drink, never cooked something for himself.  They are treated like overgrown children all their lives and then punished for not being adult enough to resist temptation.  

And if they are brash enough to want more, to hope for more, if, like Anders, they come to the Circle at an age where they remember what it’s like to run free, to have family, friends, crushes on the pretty girl next door, pets, work, freedom, they are branded rebellious troublemakers.  If they run away from their stone prison they are hunted like animals (using what is, hypocritically enough, pretty much blood magic) and dragged back.  If it happens often enough the punishments become severe, like being put in solitary confinement for a year.

Plenty’s been written on the extraordinarily traumatic nature of solitary confinement and the long-term consequences it brings- I won’t reiterate that here.  But it’s torture, pure and simple.

And when a mage can’t take it anymore, he’ll either fall apart internally or externally.  Anders says the most common way for a mage to die is by his own hand, and just imagine that for a moment- Anders has seen mages, multiple, kill themselves- has found their bodies, perhaps, or had friends that simply gave up the fight and didn’t come to breakfast the next morning.  

If they fall apart externally the demons are there, taking them over and puppeting them in a grotesque parody of power before they’re cut down.  Either way they’re dead.

*********

Now put yourself in his shoes.  Remember what you were like at 5, or 7, or 12?  Remember your parents, your family, your world?  Now imagine that it’s been discovered that you have a trait totally out of your control- something dangerous and feared, yes, but no more so than a sword in the hands of a child.

Imagine your parents cursing your name, beating you, locking you up, handing you over to armed strangers.  Imagine your mother tearfully pressing a pillow into your hands and knowing that in all likelihood you will never, ever see any of your family again.

Imagine these strange armed men then drag you across the countryside, screaming, crying, afraid, lonely, and bring you into a prison.  You are thrown into a large room full of strangers, people you’ve been told to fear all your life until you realized you were one of them.  Maybe they make fun of you, the new kid, the one who can’t read, who doesn’t know a fireball from a sleep spell.  Imagine the first time you have to take a shit in front of dozens of strangers.

Imagine being thrown into a boarding school where you never get to go outside, where your days of working in the fields with your parents or playing with your dog or cat or sibling are replaced by lessons, lessons, and more lessons.  Where you are taught to harness the power inside of you and simultaneously condemned for having it in the first place.  Where you are taught to heal, to help others, but never allowed to actually do so.  

Maybe you remember when Aunt Bernice was sick, or the cow sprained a leg, and you wish you could just go home and help, where you could fireball the damn wolf that keeps eating your family’s sheep.  But you can’t go home, ever, and so you’re reduced to setting up sock blinds and performing ridiculous arcane exercises that may or may not have practical value, ever.  You’re cursed, useless, and in the eyes of your jailers, a punishment inflicted upon the world.  You’re less than human and you will be watched, always, in case you slip, and if you do, the templars will be there to cut you down.

**********

This is Anders’ reality.  And when he fights back, does he immediately go blow up the Chantry?  No.  The first thing he does when he stops running is set up a clinic to heal people, to help, and to hide.  He only gets involved in the mage underground because he came to help Karl, his first lover.

Imagine finding the first person you ever cared about and left on friendly terms lobotomized.

So he blows up the Chantry then, right?

No.  He sits down and writes out well-thought out arguments, and goes around begging people to read it.  He tries to send it to Orsino, Meredith, anyone who will listen and make changes.  He tries the peaceful route.

But no one is interested in logic, in how mages, properly trained and cared-for are no more dangerous than a trained soldier.  How they could help.  No one is interested in the fact that mages are the Maker’s children, too, and as his creations don’t deserve to be punished for something completely out of their control.

And this is Anders with Justice riding sidesaddle in his head.  Awakenings Anders would just have cut and run- he has a history of it, and after Dissent he tries to run, before he hurts anyone.

But Justice won’t let him leave, won’t let him abandon his people and the fight they both sacrificed so much for.  You can tell him to leave, and cut him out of your party.  Justice finds a way to make it happen.

At the beginning of Act III, in your house, Anders reveals that the mage cause is all but lost.  Most of the people he worked with have been killed by Meredith.  No one is reading his manifesto- no one is even considering his viewpoint, because the system as it is has endured for a thousand years.

How do you change something a thousand years in the making?

How do you incite your fellow mages to rise up, at last, to see the slow death for what it is, how do you fight for the freedom simply to live as a human being?

You do it by forcing the hand of your common enemy.  Anders didn’t blow up the Chantry to kill the Grand Cleric, or to kill anyone, for that matter.  He did it because it was the one thing that would guarantee that Meredith would order the Rite of Annulment on a Circle full of innocent mages.

He exposed, to all of the mages, once and for all, that their guilt or innocence doesn’t matter.  The Templars have the power of life and death over them, and will exercise it at their whim.  There is no one to protect them, no one to save them when the Rite is ordered.

Meredith would have ordered it anyway (had already sent to Val Royeaux for permission, as is revealed if you go and talk to the Templars in the Gallows at the end of Act III) but that particular execution of the Rite would have been cloaked under the guise of “They’re all blood mages and they deserve it.”    They all would have died without a murmur, the Circle wiped clean, and no one left to argue their guilt or innocence.

Anders’ actions make it crystal-clear that he is the one to blame for the Chantry, the Circle was in no way responsible.  But Meredith takes it out on them anyway, because the people will demand blood, and after all, they’re just mages, it’s not like they’re human, right?  Keep in mind that the Circle is full of innocents, men, women, children, Bethany.

Anders reveals to all of the mages beyond a shadow of a doubt that they exist at the Templar’s sufferance, to be executed regardless of guilt or innocence.  The Circle is a death sentence.  Change and revolution won’t come from the outside- so he creates it on the inside, and pushes the Templars to reveal who they really, truly are- executioners.

There are fourteen Circles of Magi in Thedas, each with dozens, or even hundreds of mages.  For a thousand years, untold generations of mages have come and gone, been imprisoned, tortured, killed.  Unless someone does something, untold future generations will continue in the same vicious cycle.

Anders steps up, with Justice’s help.  He takes on the mantle and burden of being the savior of his people.  The compassionate healer kills a building full of innocent people (and it nearly destroys him to do it) in order to save thousands upon thousands of innocents in the present and future.  He knows that he deserves to die for what he’s done and begs you to put him to the sword.  As long as the revolution occurs, his own life is unimportant.

*****

Anders is an epic figure, a tragic hero, a cursed and blessed man.  He refuses to accept that he, or any mage deserve their treatment, and he fights, unceasingly, for all of them.  He sacrifices his life so that justice may be done.

I know exactly who Anders is, and I love the hell out of him.  Vive la fucking revolution, baby.  <3

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,  Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

—————————

“It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

-Patrick Henry

It’s two years old, but I absolutely love this defense of Anders. It resonates with everything I feel about this character. 

Still makes me a little teary even after all this time.  Probably one of the single most important pieces of meta in the entire Dragon Age fandom.

One of the things I love about Anders’ characterization, especially in his interactions with Merrill, is how, for all that he considers himself a radical and a revolutionary, he still totally buys in to the framework that the Chantry’s selling.

When he and Merrill are arguing about spirits he chastises her, saying, “Do Dalish honestly not recognize the difference between demons and beneficial spirits?” and later “But have you never studied the types of demon? They break down very clearly into different sins—” Okay, like, which is which and according to whom, dude? What you consider a sin or a virtue is completely dependant on the cultural framework you exist within.

I can absolutely see how a polytheistic culture like the Dalish would perhaps take a more measured approach to spirits. Merrill even lampshades this cultural division, saying during party banter with Anders, “Your ‘Maker’ is a story you humans use to explain the world. We have our own stories. I don’t need to borrow yours.”

The Elven pantheon shares a number of similarties to Greek mythology. A god or goddess is not necessarily good or bad in Greek mythology, but can be spiteful, vengeful, generous, and thoroughly enwrapped in their own agendas.

Merrill seems to look at spirits in much the same way. When she parts the barrier on Sundermount she says, “The spirit helped us, didn’t it?” Later, in party banter when Anders asks her about the first time she did blood magic, she says, “[The ‘demon’ who helped me] is a spirit. He offered me his aid. I hardly think you’re one to criticize.” This interaction in particular underscores their divergent conceptions of the nature of spirits. Merrill made a deal with a spirit aware that spirits have their owns agendas and there is a danger inherent in working with them, while Anders made a deal with Justice and thought it’d work out alright just because Justice was a “spirit” as opposed to a “demon”.

This is brilliantly stated, but I have one small thing to add that often gets overlooked: Anders is religious, so it goes without saying that despite how strongly he disagrees with the Chantry's treatment of mages, he's a believer. He's blithe about his once being a "good little Andrastian who said all his prayers" when it comes up in Awakening, but think of where he's coming from: regardless of whether or not he himself was born or raised in the Anderfels, his family was, and the Ander people are known for being the most devout and pious Andrastians in Thedas.   Imagine the crisis of faith he must've had when he came into his magic!  A twelve year old who knows nothing but his family, his village, and his religion suddenly becomes the very thing he's been taught to fear and loathe.  And we all remember being twelve; it's no walk in the park, either.   So he grows up resenting the life he's forced into while believing his magic is a gift and still trying to reconcile his faith with what his faith says about people like him, and when things finally come to a head he lashes out at the very institution that's hurt him and his people so badly, knowing fully well that the Chant says "those who do harm unto the house of the Maker do harm unto the Maker Himself."   No matter how you slice it, his being an Andrastian shaped his entire life, Chantry or no.  He believes whether or not he attends services (we don't know), and we know he spends a fair amount of time sitting and reading the Chant of Light because he uses it for arguments in his manifesto.  It means something to him even though it's caused him a lot of pain, and he wants others to understand the Chant the way he does. So, when he comes upon Merrill, a mage who seems to sympathize with his cause (or at the very least his point of view), he can't wrap his mind around the fact that there are mages that don't believe in the Maker, or read the Chant, or follow Chantry dogma.  It's incomprehensible to him that there could possibly be any other way of viewing magic.  To Anders, being a mage is wrapped up in Andrastianism, or at least in believing in the Maker.  He acknowledges that Merrill has had a much different go of it than he has because she's Dalish, but the fact that her being a mage isn't defined by Andrastianism escapes him in a way he can't quite seem to grasp. And it's brilliant because Merrill totally sees that and even expressly calls him out on all of it more than once.  It's perfect.

Can we just talk about fandom and mental disorders for a moment?

I don’t know if it’s a growing trend or I’m just starting to notice it, but this idea of diagnosing certain characters within a fandom as having a mental disorder (with no canon support) is starting to grind on me.

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I have lots of feelings about this topic, so I hope you don’t mind me chiming in.

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yeah i

yeah i dont like Cullen all that much

um

what is that about mages being raped

Alain was sexually abused by Ser Karas. You hear the tranquil mage say she belongs to Ser Alrek. There was rape and abuse in the Kirkwall Circle

And if you kill Ser Karras, poor Alain ends up as some other templar’s plaything.

Its hearing stuff like that which made me not care about Anders big boom.

And if you kill Ser Karras, poor Alain ends up as some other templar’s plaything.

What? Where? How? Was this actually in the game?

During “Best Served Cold”, Alain will say that templars will come into a mage’s chambers and “ask things of you”. I doubted they were asking him to make them sandwiches.

Oh. I seemed to remember that it’s Ser Karras that asked things of him if you don’t kill him. Then again, I never killed him in any of my games…

This seems to be one of those things I chalk up to the oversight writing for the game.  Cullen no matter his feelings on mages because of the first game would allow something like that to be happening under his watch.  He may think they need to be kept in the circle and under constant watch, but it is clear he wouldn’t allow things like that.  I don’t think it’s in his nature to allow rape and beatings to happen to another living being.

There are numerous  moments in the game that are like this, where Bioware seemed to toss character aside for story bits.  It got a little annoying, to me at least.  So what I hope is that doesn’t happen in DA 3.

That's all well and good, but Cullen is also the guy who says that mages aren't people.  He doesn't see them as being human beings or elves--they're literally lesser beings to him, and he explicitly says he thinks this. Dehumanization is conducive to abuse, specifically rape (which is about power and dominance rather than sex).  Cullen dehumanizes mages to Hawke's face--even if Hawke is a mage--and he doesn't apologize or recant his "mages aren't people" comment even if called out on it by a mage!Hawke.  Since Cullen does this, it's not at all unlikely that he's aware of the abuse occurring and isn't doing anything about it, even if he himself isn't condoning it or participating in it. He's in a position of incredible power over the lives of others, whom he doesn't see as being people.  It's more likely than not that he's entirely aware of the rampant abuse in the Gallows, because it wasn't uncommon in the much less strict Kinloch Hold.   And remember, Cullen was abused by blood mages and demons during the debacle in Kinloch Hold (during the "Broken Circle" quest in DA:O), and he has major resentment and anger towards mages--one of the epilogues for DA:O tells us that he becomes paranoid and kills several mages and/or apprentices before being dismissed from the Templars and removed from the Circle, at which point he becomes a mage-hunting madman.  Alternatively, he replaces Greagor and rules the Ferelden Circle with fear. Even if he didn't get that epilogue in a particular playthrough, that's a part of his character.  Even though he's obviously much more well-adjusted and considerably not-a-madman in DA2, that's a part of his character.  He doesn't think mages are people, and he has some deeply held personal prejudices against them that are separate from Chantry anti-mage dogma that give him the potential to kill several of them before he's forcibly removed from his post. He uses physical violence to threaten and attempt to interrogate an initiate and calls it a rouse--even though it turns out he was justified in attacking Wilmod because he was possessed, it still isn't okay for him to do. And don't even get me started on his crush on F!Surana or F!Amell, because it reeks of horrifically unbalanced power dynamics, and very dubiously consensual sex (even in a consented-to encounter). Cullen's scary as fuck, no two ways about it.  That he sides with Hawke in the pro-mage ending of DA2 doesn't excuse him. 

Historical Burn Treatments vs. Magical Healing in Thedas

A while ago I was going to write a post-DA2 fic focusing on cleanup of the Chantry wreckage. Mostly it was Hawke grimly pulling out charred corpses and then going home to Anders and it being super-awkward, but somewhere in there was a tangent about survivors with horrible burns being set up in a makeshift hospital in the Keep courtyard and tended (also grimly) by mage healers. This is what happens when you read Young Men and Fire at an impressionable age.

SO! Because I knew very little about burn treatment in the modern day, much less in pseudo-medieval settings, I did some research! Some of which (lol don’t be fooled, this is looooong) I will now share with you, along with some thoughts on magical healing. No pictures, because eyuuuurgh. D:

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Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant analysis here.  I highly recommend this as being standard reading for anyone who wants to tackle serious fic or additional analysis. However, I just have one thing I'd like to say:  I always assumed Anders suggested whiskey for Rowland's pain because it would act as some sort of anesthetic, relaxing him and dulling the pain Anders couldn't fix with his magic.  It's a rudimentary, field medicine sort of solution, but a valid one nonetheless.  Just my two-cents. 

The dialogue between Bethany and Anders if she goes to the Circle always makes me so mad - and, as a Bethany fan, always makes me more than a bit irritated with Anders, because the farther along in his quest he gets, the less he’s able to see the world from anything but his own perspective.

Threw her life away? And what life was that? A life of hiding, a life she knew would never amount to anything she actually wanted? Never a family, never children - or if she did have a family, a constant worry that those children would inherit her magic, that the cycle would start all over again? A life in which she knew she was responsible for a lot of her own family’s pain and struggle, that everyone else had sacrificed much of their own happiness to keep her safe? 

Anders looks at her and sees the person he thinks he wishes he could have been - a mage with a family willing to give up everything for her, who knows how to handle her own magic, who’s survived as a free woman to adulthood. But he can’t see what that freedom has cost her and her family, how much of a burden it puts on Bethany and everyone around her. He can’t, because he’s never been anywhere near her position. But, instead of sympathizing with her, of remembering that being a mage sucks for everyone and that everyone handles it in a different way, he judges her - she gave up, did the unthinkable, betrayed the cause. He doesn’t see that she did it to set her family free … and to set herself free, in a very real way. Free from guilt, free from being scared all the time, free from the weight of wondering if she’s sinning against the Maker. To ask a teenaged girl to continue to endure that sort of weight, even if the stakes are larger than she is … it’s unfair. She did what she thought she had to do. 

The fact that Anders can’t see her position is, of course, yet another example of how messed up the Chantry/Circle system is. When you tell a whole population of people that they’re not allowed to have a family, or a normal life of any sort, they’re naturally going to romanticize that ‘normal’ life to the point where they can’t understand how fucked up a family can really be. 

(There’s also a story to tell in here about how Bethany only sees certain sides of Circle life, at least at first, but that’s a different post.)

The grass is always greener. In this case, for both Anders and Bethany. 

I agree with everything Minorearth said, but my interpretation of that banter is completely different; to me, when Anders accuses Bethany of "giving up" and "throwing her life away", he's angry with her for opting out of an option he's always wanted and has always been denied--having a family of her own. By Anders's logic, remaining an apostate allows for the potential to meet someone who will love you despite the fact that you're a mage.  It gives you a chance to start a life with that person, to have children with them, to have a family to love and protect and cherish.  Staying an apostate means becoming Malcolm and finding your Leandra.   So, by Anders's logic, Bethany did give up.  She did throw her life away.   By turning herself in to the Circle, she's signing away her right to her autonomy, to her right to having civil and human rights.  She's volunteering to be put into bondage and abused mentally, emotionally, and potentially physically.  She's allowing the Circle to do their best to prevent her from having emotional intimacy with another person, allowing them to take away any children she may have and prevent her from ever seeing them again.   Mind you, this isn't the way all mages view the Circle (because Bethany certainly doesn't), but it is how Anders views it.  To Anders, to whom freedom is of utmost importance, the very idea of Bethany not wanting to "slip her leash" is appalling and unimaginable.  The fact that she allowed herself to be taken to the Circle and didn't and won't fight against it is practically a personal attack on him--not because of his crusade, but because he's fought against it for the better part of his life because, no matter how you slice it, Anders wants a family.  He wants to have the right to have a family, which being a mage is in direct conflict with because mages (especially Circle mages) don't have rights.   Again, though, I agree with Minorearth's interpretation.  Mine is just different. 

MoG Point 1: Stop Whining, Anders

Dear gentlefolk, here is the Manifesto of Greatness Point 1.  If you’re not sure what the MoG is, read up on it here.  Anyway, if you have rebuttals for the various arguments listed under this point, please reblog and add your material.  A week from now, I will take all of the responses and give them an edit, with appropriate credits to everyone, and which will then be compiled, and a new point circulated.

Have fun!  Hopefully when the MoG is done, we won’t have to keep arguing the same points over and over :D

Point 1:  Stop Whining, Anders

-Anders’ complaints aren’t justified

-Anders is whiny

-Mages don’t have it that bad

-The Templars never did anything that bad to Anders, and all that rape is just hearsay, anyway.

-The Circle gave its mages food, housing, clothing, and education, and is therefore a great place to live, and Anders should stop complaining.

-So a few mages get locked up. It’s not that bad. Nothing bad ever happens in Circles. But think of all the innocent farmers and peasants you are protecting. Are their lives worth less?

-He doesn’t talk about anything but mages and freedom. It’s annoying. Shut the whining already, sissy.

-Why would Anders even start the whole revolution thing in first place? He was never raped or beaten. So nothing bad happened, he was perfectly fine in the Circle himself.

-Anders complains constantly about the lack of mage rights, but never does anything about it.

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VERY, VERY LONG META.

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