About Hawke and his father’s death
The loss of the father:
In many ways the death of a father serves as a right of passage, though a painful and difficult one. This is due to the fact that for many sons their inheritance is less about property and more about responsibility. Many men, regardless of their age when their father died, feel like they grew up suddenly and significantly when it happened.
Their father’s death leaves a vacuum in the family dynamic, and sons often feel compelled to step up to try to fill their father’s role. This is especially true if the father had been the leader and protector of the family. Sons may feel a great deal of pressure and may not feel up to the task of protecting and leading the family. If Mom is still alive, then caring for her will often be a central focus of this sense of responsibility. At best this will lead to growth for the son, and the family will pull together and become closer as it adjusts to the new dynamics. However, this is not always the case. Family members may resist the son’s efforts to take a leadership role; siblings may even compete for leadership within the family. At worst this can lead to a family disintegrating without the presence of the father that had once held them together.
The role of the eldest child:
Typically responsible, confident and conscientious, they are more likely to mirror their parents’ beliefs and attitudes, and often choose to spend more time with adults. Oldest children are often natural leaders, and their role at work may reflect this.
Because they are more likely to have authority over younger siblings, or take on the role of surrogate parent, they have a tendency to be bossy and want things to be done their way. Oldest children can be perfectionists and worriers, and may put pressure on themselves to succeed.
Hawke’s whole life has only been about pressure, responsability and stress. From the moment he was born, he was in danger with his father being an apostate on the lam.
Even within a loving family, he had to grow up going from place to place, never really safe and always on his toes.
Then came his own mage powers. Then Bethany’s. Even more stress for the clan with these two more apostates to protect.
He was the eldest so he naturally had to take care of his siblings even while Malcolm was still alive. He watched over them and already had responsabilities at this time.
After his father’s death, it got worse. He suddenly became the man of the house. He had to grow up way too fast and was expected to take after an adult’s role. His mother, not being able to take care of everything on her own, relied on him a lot, be it for the money, the siblings or the work.
When Bethany died, he was the one his mother and brother blamed. “You were supposed to protect her, where were you when this happened?”
When they arrived to Kirkwall, they turned to Hawke to find the money they needed to pay his uncle’s debts while their mother would stay at home. He struggled for a year and juggles between jobs just to be able to make his family survive.
Carver, only thinking about the fact that he was in his brother’s shadow (but not really thinking about the fact that Hawke never asked for this to start with) left his mother to join the templars. This made their mother more stressed and she naturally transfered this stress to Hawke. Great. More issues to think about. (I cannot stress enough on the fact that Hawke’s mother relies on him way too much)
As if the family responsability wasn’t enough, the city chose him as their Champion. Eldest child, man of the family and now Champion.
The title is pretty much equal to Hero. What’s a Hero? Sure, the popularity, the money, the influence… What’s more? Ah yes. The responsabilities, people looking up to you and expecting you to never fail, people seeing you as someone unbreakable, strong no matter what. Even more? They force you to make decisions and then blamie you if it doesn’t turn right.
Hawke jokes about it and says “Hawke this, Hawke that, why does everything fall to me?” but it’s far from being funny to him. The responsabilities are slowly breaking him, breaking this fearless champion.
In his attempts to never fail and always please everyone, he can’t keep faking being flawless and make mistakes.
And when he faces the nightmare, all he can think about is “this is my fault. I never did anything right. This is my duty to make things right.” The pressure, the stress, the responsabilities left a scar on this man. He started to believe that he could settle everything on his own. When he’s just as human as anyone else.
And as he charges the monster, he whispers “I’m sorry, Fenris”. Because he can’t allow himself to be selfish and simply wish to live peacefully with his lover.
No, it’s his duty to save him, to save them because it has always been this way.
He’s the son, he’s the man, he’s the Champion.
And this was all his fault.
