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stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage · 2 months

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Are there any companions you can't stand?

I wouldn't say I have any that I can't stand. Something that's so engaging to me about DA is that the companions have good, bad, and a lot in between. Honestly, I don't hate any of them. There are companions that I have more issues with than others, but I like them all; even, and sometimes especially, the ones that tend to be heavily hated on by the fandom.

The only companion that might fall into this category for me is Sebastian, but I totally acknowledge that I've yet to make an effort to use him when I play DA2. I legit just forget about him. How am I supposed to have a good grasp of his character when I don't engage with him outside of his companion quests? Plus I usually romance Anders so Sebastian always leaves my party in the end with threats of bringing an army down on Kirkwall for not killing Anders, soooo... yeah. Not the greatest impression he's left me with.

I would like to have a more well-rounded opinion of Sebastian because the concept of him is interesting; he's this chantry brother who is also a prince, but his family was murdered so he puts up a bounty on the chantry board [which admittedly is SO funny] and his companion quests are about avenging his family and helping him decide if he should take back his lands or remain a chantry brother. But then I talk to him, I listen to him talk to the other companions, and it's like... oh, the chantry has become his entire personality because the dude was brainwashed and now he's saying shit like the maker was actually the one who freed Fenris from slavery, and when Fenris tells him a story about how Denarius killed a child in a ritual for more power, Sebastian just doubles down that the maker has his reasons, like....babe, c'mon now.

I feel like I've read pieces about him written by fans who love him that are more compellingly written than he is, if that makes sense. Really, I would love to be educated by those who love him, especially Sebastian romancers because of all the love interests in all of DA, he's the one I look at and go, "....okay but why?" I have a lot of fun with character discussions and other perspectives so I mean that sincerely.

Also I think it's worth noting that when I play, I tend to get super into the roleplay of my warden/hawke/inquisitor, but while they have party members they can't stand, I have opinions that are separate from them, y'know?

For example, since I've talked about it a lot recently, my mage Hawke and Aveline butt heads constantly. By the end of Act 3, they're rivalry is heated and Ed's surprised Aveline even sided with him in the end because THAT is how much their relationship deteriorated over the course of the game... but then there's my warrior Hawke who adored Aveline. The two of them were best friends and Aris always gave her the benefit of the doubt, like she had Aveline's back through and through.

I've complained about Aveline a lot in my posts so it probably does sound like I can't stand her, but that's not true. Aveline's actually a companion that fascinates me, like she makes me go, "God, you're such an asshole, tell me more right now." and it drives me crazy how she and Carver are foils, like I love it so much, I could go on and on about how foiled they are, it makes me want to bite something.

It's very easy to look at Aveline and think she's just a bitch, she's a cop, she's a bad character, #Aveline-critical, bad companion, etc. I see it all the time, and not just with her, but with every companion in dragon age, y'know? I'm not saying that's wrong or anything; some characters just don't vibe with you or you have legit reasons for hating them and that's fine. I'm just saying some of it's very surface level unless you make the effort to elaborate.

If you don't like a character, you're less likely to make an effort to understand or see anything positive about them. You're more likely to have confirmation bias, so whenever they do or say anything, you go looking for the worst interpretation. I try not to do this just because for me, that's the "boring" approach to games like this but as we've seen, I'm not immune either... y'know, Sebastian.

But Carver gets this a lot, too, and I think I've made myself clear that Carver is my favorite, I love him, the Hawke twins are S-tier companions and I would throw everyone in Kirkwall into the ocean if it meant Bethany and Carver's happiness.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the characters a lot of fans can't stand are some of my favorites?

Like a lot of people shit on Sera, and I'm like "Nah, that's my girl! Listen, she's got a LOT of internalized issues, but we're working through them okay! She's getting better!"

And Vivienne? Oh, don't get me started on Vivienne, I have a whole deal about her. She's also an asshole and I love her.

My canon inquisitor is Surana who escaped the circle and joined the dalish, becoming Lavellan. Vivienne is a reflection of what Ash could've been if she hadn't run away with Jowan. She played the game of the circle, she stepped wherever she needed to step because Ash knew she was at a disadvantage by being an elf, for one, and for two, not coming from a family with wealth that would give her special privileges. Her downfall was buying into her own hype and believing she couldn't be wrong about Jowan, believing that she could either prevent them from making him tranquil or help him and Lily run away, and believing she was above punishment because she worked her way into being Irving's favorite. Yet it all bit her in the ass and she had to run… so then years later after living outside of the circle and realizing just what the chantry is, how it conditions and abuses mages and shit, she meets Vivienne who also played the game well and came out on top, who now spouts the same shit Ash used to spout and it's makes their dynamic sooo chewable.

Then there's Cullen who's not a companion but I lump him and Josephine in with the companions anyway. They're advisors, they're in the inner circle, they count.

He's such a spineless ass in DA2 like believe me, I get all the criticisms he gets... but he's also fairly polite to Hawke even if they're openly anti-templar, he's softer spoken, and he's unwell after what happened to him in DAO and Meredith's clearly taking advantage of his state... but then he becomes an advisor in DAI who is so done with people's bullshit and blatantly honest about it, like he looks at Chancellor Roderick like "this fucking guy again" and he's so ready to just go for it, y'know? Well... unless you're a pretty lady who bats her eyes at him, then suddenly he doesn't know how words work. Like sometimes I feel crazy because I find him to be so funny in DAI, and overall a compelling character that I enjoy interacting with even when he's being a total asshole. Yeah, there's issues in his writing but I appreciate the vision the writers were going for, even if they stumbled... except for Sheryl Chee, I don't appreciate her contribution of those few posts on the DA forums that everyone uses as a smoking gun to "prove" awful things about him. Nothing gets under my skin more in character discussions than bad faith arguments and there's so much of that when it comes to Cullen.

Actually, while we're on that, can I just add a note that when I first got into this fandom, I saw someone's post about Chee doing an interview where she said all those bad things about Cullen wanting to assault the mage warden and I was like, "What? An interview? What interview?? Where??" and I couldn't find shit until much later when I read another anti-Cullen post that cited a DA forum as the source for her saying those things... so not an interview. I went digging for the forum, went into the way back machine to find it.... only to discover that this smoking gun comes from a fanfiction forum where Mary Kirby was also talking about Sten and catgirls and y'all expect me to take that seriously?

We can have discussions about whether or not Cullen's a bad person or a bad character, but the moment you bring Sheryl Chee into it, I know you're here in bad faith and your argument is void.

Sorry for the tangent and the long answer but this is the stuff I enjoy. I could talk about the characters of DA for ages unprompted that when someone does throw me a bone, I will discuss and gush about them all.

#asks #dragon age #dao #da2 #dai #sebastian vael #aveline vallen #carver hawke #dai sera #cullen rutherford #vivienne de fer #i have to stop myself before i go on tangents about morrigan and wynne and anders and isabela and merrill and dorian and varric and-#literally everyone sksksks i can't help it #also on the flip side of this type of discussion i also love looking at characters that most people adore and discussing their flaws #like i love alistair he's my favorite companion in dao BUT it's easy to forgot that he can be just as petty and selfish too y'know?#if you don't execute loghain he can straight up just abandon you and leave and you'll find him in da2 as a drunk like... babe really left #and let you deal with the blight because he was so blinded by revenge and thirst for loghain's death and that's not great??#not really something that gets brought up because it's unflattering it's an ugly part of his character but it's there mingling with the goo #and if you have a good relationship with him but don't know how he'll react when you spare loghain that can be devastating too #but it's also super understandable WHY he reacts like that WHY he leaves even if it's a selfish move on his part and hurts you #i dunno i think sometimes we're scared to talk about the ugly parts of our favorite characters because we love them #and don't want them to be wrong especially in fandom with a lot of pissing matches and bad faith arguments y'know?#i dunno this is my spiel of the night: i love all my companions except sebastian who is just a character that exists to me #i wasn't joking when i said i'd like to be enlighted about sebby and his romance like....... explain elaborate educate

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angelsdean · 1 year

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my tags on my prev reblog re: dean's misinterpreted attitude toward monsters just got me thinking abt sam and the bloodfreak stuff in general and like, as we know a lot of the early seasons were framed in sam's pov so a lot of the time it' him who's feeling like a monster and projecting that onto others to confirm his own beliefs abt himself. like when he finds out abt john telling dean to kill him if he goes darkside sam suddenly is in agreement w/ john saying john's right and dean has to do it because dad said so !!! anyways that's just preface to what i want to say which is, sam isn't really a monster. what i mean is, he's not a monster in the inherent sense that he seems to think he is, and that's part of the reason why dean pushes back against the demon blood stuff because he knows sam can be saved and for dean his number one job is to save sam because the alternative is following john's order and that's something he just cannot do. so it makes sense that dean would do whatever it takes even if that's being a little mean or forceful (calling him a monster, echoing john by telling him not to walk out that door to give sam pause, forcing him to detox) because he does not want to kill his brother.

but anyways, sam is not a monster in the way he (and a lot of fans) thinks he's a monster. he was Not born a monster, it's not something that is intrinsically and inherently part of him. and i'd argue there's really nothing special or "chosen one"-esque about him (aside from the lucifer bloodline making him a better candidate for vessel purposes), he was just a regular baby who was dosed with demon blood, which in the text is treated as a drug / addiction. there was nothing special about any of the babies azazel dosed, they were just the children of people he'd made deals with. i think pretty much any baby (possibly even adult) who's fed demon blood from a powerful enough demon (like a Prince of Hell) would develop psychic powers. so it's not something completely out of his control that's turning him into a monster like a virus or a vampire / werewolf bite where he can't stop the progression. it's not happening to him he's making active choices to strengthen those powers and the more he feeds the more he wants it. everything w/ ruby is framed as him knowing he's doing something "wrong", the sneaking around, the lying. and i think dean's response is along the lines of "we need to get you help. we need to stop this because it's something that can be stopped. and if we stop it then i won't have to see you lose yourself or go too far. because if you go too far and start hurting people then i might have to kill you and i can't do that so please just let us save you." and i think that's fair. yes he and bobby maybe go about things the wrong way but i think it's born out of desperation. and also it's not a rejection of "this is who you are and we hate you for being a monster" it's "you're making choices that are leading you down a dangerous path and we're scared we may lose you so we're trying to stop you from going too far down that road."

like the end goal of all the bloodfreak stuff (ruby's end goal) was to free lucifer and freeing lucifer would mean sam becoming his vessel. they obviously don't know all that at the time, but in hindsight it's like, yea we should've curbed that bloodfreak stuff sooner. also heaven was telling dean to stop sam too and that he was going down a dangerous path and that if dean doesn't stop him they will (likely meaning death) so again, of course dean's gonna try to do whatever he can to stop sam even if it's by not great methods. (also heaven was playing him too bc they also wanted lucifer to be freed so that Destiny could come to pass)

#i've been thinking a lot abt the bloodfreak stuff lately #esp whenever i see takes that sam is like inherently different or monstrous #like he's really not ??? he was just a baby who was fed demon blood like many other babies #i read the bloodfreak stuff thru an addition lens moreso than a 'there's something inherently wrong w/ me' lens #which is also why the queercoded sam stuff often just. does not stick for me. like i Can see where ppl are coming from #but when you don't view sam's monstrous-ness as inherent then it's like. well it doesn't make for good parallels to queerness #whereas you take the shifter / dean parallels and it's like !!!! the shifter relating to dean and saying they're alike in many ways #that they were both born different and hated before they had to make themselves different and both just want someone to love them #and the shifter as dean earlier telling sam he's a freak he knows he's a freak and that everyone will always leave him #it's just different the way dean's ''freakness'' is framed as something inherent to him #while sam's is literally literally !! something that was Introduced to him after the fact not something he was born with #i'm sorry and this isn't sam crit it's more. interpretation crit ?#but also i think we can all have different and conflicting interpretations too bc sometimes i'm like yea. queer sam!#(tho often that has nothing to do w/ the monster-coding)#but idk i've just been thinking abt the bloodfreak stuff lately and how other characters reacted to it and how it's framed from sam's pov #vs deans and other characters. like sam seems to think there is something inherently wrong w/ him and so a lot of viewers believe it #but from outside perspectives dean and bobby and even heaven view it as an addiction and as choices sam's making that he can stop #vic.txt #mymeta #long post #sam studies

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