Veilguard—The Apotheosis of Victim Blaming
I am an abuse survivor. Part of the reason I empathize so heavily with Solas is because of this. I’m not the first person to point out that his behavior in DAI has all the hallmarks of an abuse victim, and everything we know about Flemeth/Mythal from the first three games and all supplementary content has characterized them both as abusers. Because victims becoming abusers is indeed a real and tragic phenomenon.
I was so hoping they’d handle the subject with the nuance and maturity we’ve come to expect from BioWare. Instead, we spent all of Veilguard combing through the most painful and traumatic memories of someone who was coerced and abused by a person he trusted, all the while the characters we’re meant to view as good and empathetic people mock him and glorify his abuser, who among other things willingly owned slaves.
Because there is no grey area, Mythal abused Solas just as Flemeth abused Morrigan and her son, and Justinia abused Leliana. And it’s clear this was the intention. It was always the intention. The foundations of it were too strong to remove entirely from the game, but I guess someone higher up wasn’t comfortable acknowledging that women can in fact be abusers, and men can in fact be victims.
So instead we get a group of relative strangers rubbernecking the tragedy of an abused man and going out of their way to heap the blame on the victim. At one point Lucanis literally says that he ‘should have just said no’ which is the kind of talk you hear about victims of assault and abuse all the time from the worst kind of people. I should know, because I’ve had the exact same experience.
It’s not just a disappointment. Disappointment doesn’t begin to touch it. I feel sick and I feel betrayed. I came to Dragon Age with DAI. It remains my favorite (or was, now the whole thing just makes me depressed) because, despite how dark things got, compassion and empathy were always there. The abused always had a voice, however singular, to stand up for them and defend them. Not so here.
There’s a sense of callousness and mean spiritedness that permeates Veilguard. Not sure if that was the intention, but that’s what we got. I couldn’t even finish the game—‘just say no’ was the last straw for me—but against my better judgement I looked into the endings, and really that was my mistake. Because the ‘good ending’ essentially boils down to the abuser oh so magnanimously releasing her victim while a group of strangers gaslight him into submission. I don’t really understand how we got here, but I hope the Devs understand just how damaging a message they ended up with. I know what it’s like to be judged with malignant bias by people determined to hate you while your abuser is lauded and praised. Because abusers are often charismatic and excellent at keeping up a saintly appearance to hide their monstrosity and further alienate their victim. That’s what this feels like.
They can try and retcon it all they like, maybe new players won’t notice, but anyone who remembers the last three games knows better. Flemeth and Mythal may have been victims once, but both went on to use and abuse the people closest to them. Sugarcoating them in the interest of ignoring/making their victims look worse is genuinely vile.
I don’t know who let this change happen, but they’ve contributed to an already skewed public perception about what abuse looks like and how abusers get away with their crimes.
And through the parallels to Varric and the Inquisitor in the "good ending", the game continually drives it home that Solas won't get "softened" at the behest of his friends or even recent lovers. I'm not mad that Solas had to learn something about Mythal specifically to change his mind. I'm mad that he didn't get the chance to break free mentally before he was so graciously forgiven and let go. When from our previous encounter with Mythal's shard, it seems more likely that whatever remains of Mythal doesn't give a shit about Solas's principles, or the memory of those sacrificed for their cause. Since Solas has been consistently portrayed as practicing self-abandonment for the sake of duty, I feel that his showdown with Mythal should have been centered on her memory becoming a cynical, vengeful husk, to make an opening for an organic disappointment on Solas's side. Then, once he got disappointed in Mythal, a favorable Inquisitor could say: it's fine, I can see you changing, let's move forward.
Otherwise, if BioWare so insists that Solas would not change his mind for anything, that indeed paints a very grim and fatalistic picture of our chances to overcome the abuse patterns and the guilt of complicity. But it seems they wrote themselves in the corner by making Solas absolutely obstinate as he came so close to fulfilling his plan.
So, while the portrayal of Mythal throughout the ages tried to be somewhat nuanced, that nuance died with Flemeth. Everything about Morrigan's arc and Solas's arc in DATV ultimately validates Mythal as the person still entitled to dispense moral judgment and forgiveness as she pleases because... *checks notes* she was driven by Benevolence in the beginning? WHAT?
What is the most infuriating, Mythal from the shard has nothing left. We saw her dragon fly one last time. Rook plunged the dagger into Elgar'nan's heart five minutes prior. They don't have to cower in fear from some terrible punishment from her. Nothing stopped them from giving Mythal a piece of their mind and calling out how she trash talked Solas in the Crossroads when he wasn't there.
