dragon age

Sketch ⬇️

Inktober 2024- day III: Nightingale

Second one done and this one took even LONGER 😭 (it’s okay tho, Leliana is worth it 🫶) But lads (gn) I don’t think my 20+ thumbnails are getting finished before Veilgaurd comes out lmao

my babes

many secrets to discover…

I want to find, rather than write, good, objective meta about how Leliana throughout the games deals with a serious identity issue, because she is hyper-aware of how her abuser shaped her into a killer when she was just a teenager, and of how she enjoyed it, and she hates it.

And then she escaped her abuser and she thought she had been saved by the Maker and by Dorothea, but then in da2 you learn that Dorothea had asked her to become a bard again, to start killing and manipulating again in the name of their cause… and she BELIEVED that cause for real, but regardless of what anyone feels or thinks, regardless of good intentions or not, of she was being used. Even if she wanted to, even if she called it anything else but, she knows, and we know, and Dorothea knows, and that’s why Dorothea leaves behind that box ‘freeing’ Leliana/her conscience.

By the beginning of DA:Inquisition, Leliana is in the middle of a big crisis, but that crisis has actually been simmering ever since DA:Origins. Leliana is amazingly talented, competent and smart, and utterly lost in her search for an identity separated from what she thinks her abuser shaped her into.

I’ve seen meta before saying that a good cause is just a “bonus” to her when it comes to living the life of a spy/bard, and… tbh the truth is that a good cause is as important to her as playing the game is, because she feels like she’s a monster without that. If she has a righteous cause to put the abilities she both revels in and loathes to use, then she can deal. She says “I’ve been many things - bard, sister, left hand - and always because someone needed something from me” , and that IS true, regardless of good intentions - but it is also true Leliana herself needed something from them: a purpose, a sense of belonging. She has been trying to fill all these roles, waiting for the one that will be right for her, and she only finds one by the end of DA:Inquisition. A softened Leliana will say 

And if you don’t ‘soften’ her, she comes to terms with being some sort of monster, but one that is necessary:

This is what she has been struggling with for so long… that’s who she has always thought she was, in the back of her mind. And by the end of Inquisition, she either accepts that ‘monstruousness’ - that talent for maniplation and murder - BECAUSE it serves a just purpose (to do what no one else dares), or her sense of morality wins over any mixture of self-loathing and bloodlust she still harbors and she decides to erase that side of her. In both cases, her ‘cause’ is either more, or at least as important as, her need/desire to be a bard. It is by no means a ‘bonus’, it never was - otherwise, would she have truly fallen out with Marjolaine after finding out she was selling Orlesian secrets out? 

Leliana’s identity issues go so deep that If you soften her, she literally talks of “rebirth”, and says she is more than what Justinia (and Majorlaine and the Inquisitor) made her into… and… and that’s wonderful… sob… I love Leliana ashdnfjmksda ……

The start of Dragon Age Inquisition in a nutshell.

I still have two more to draw, but I wanted to put this up since I spent all of today working on it!!

just finished my official origins world save game….. ohhh the sillies. ohhh

The Advisor

 Drawn on Paintberri

morrigan and leliana at the winter palace.. whatever will they do? 🧐

as voted on by my ko-fi members! :)

my babes

Listen... I wanted to draw a wolf then it turned in to this. How?

Who miss our favorite redhead bard, Leliana? 🥰

I cannot help feeling like the tendency to see Inquisition!Leliana in stark contrast to Origins!Leliana has led to some people forgetting what... Leliana is actually like in Origins.

In fairness, as in all Dragon Age games some very revealing character moments happen in party banter which makes it easy to miss. But the gentle-hearted mystic who desires only to draw others unto the love of the Maker has never been all that Leliana is, and it's always been in direct conflict with the side of her that is not only adept at intrigue and yes, violence, but enjoys those things. This is the central conflict of her whole character, and it's not a trivial conflict, because there is not one simple answer to who Leliana truly is. She is both of these things. She is deeply religious and finds comfort in her faith, and thinks it should bring comfort to others as well. She's also prone to gossip and pettiness and all the qualities that helped her thrive as a bard.

There's this one particularly revealing piece of banter with Alistair if the Warden is in a romance with Morrigan:

@riddleredcoats Sorry to pull this out of the tags but I had to say that I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly! Leliana does not know who she is. She doesn't know in Origins, and she still doesn't know in Inquisition, which is why her personality is still able to be swayed one way or the other by the person leading her despite her not really having the close relationship with the Inquisitor that she can have with the Warden.

This is why, in looking at her rather two-faced behavior toward Morrigan, I don't take either of those faces to be the "true" Leliana necessarily. Or rather in a sense they're both true. The Leliana who calls Morrigan a vile fiend is both as authentic and as inauthentic as the Leliana who wants to convert Morrigan to faith in the Maker and also dress her in velvet and admire her "features."

And a big yes to Morrigan and Vivienne in contrast both having a very strong sense of self that is not easily swayed by others.

This is why I think that a lot of the differences between Origins!Leliana and Inquisition!Leliana are superficial, and can be deceptive. She has not gone on a journey of self-discovery. Even her faith is malleable to her present situation and who she is presently allowing herself to be influenced by. She's still struggling with the same centerlessness and lack of identity after ten years. It's the real tragedy of her character, imo, regardless of how the Inquisitor steers her post-Inquisition.

thinking about how leliana in origins is talking about how she never wants to be someone who enjoys manipulating people with ease and ruining their lives or taking others lives for no reason. she doesnt want to be someone who lives off grudges and doesnt care about individual's lives. how she never really wanted to leave the cloister, she just wanted to serve her god as best she saw fit. and then in inquisition you meet her again and regardless of what happened to her in the past she has become everything she never wanted to be all in the name of a god that never speaks back

just because a character doesnt realize theyve become a worse person, or doesnt care, doesnt make it an inconsistent character arc. real people do that. she acknowledges shes different than she used to be. in dai you dont get to be That close with her, not to the extent of origins. she probably wouldnt tell you either way. bioware does not have the best writing by far but come onnnn i need people to learn inconsistency is not necessarily bad writing. a character can be inconsistent or lie or get worse without realizing it. just because you dont like the direction her character took doesnt mean its bad can we please learn that. together. take my hand

I've been busy and will be busy for the next 2 weeks, so slow progress on more detailed Dragon Age pieces, but here's a doodle of Caoimhe deciding not to be mean because Leliana said please.

Caoimhe is my secondary canon Warden, as Feng is my main. But I love my angry elf lady just as much (she's a very good person, just angry at the world because- well - you know how the city elf origin goes...).

I'm gonna disappear for a bit now. 🫡