Currently in love with the relationship between the Grey Wardens and being doomed by the narrative, especially with how the HOF subverts that relationship so here's a 3am rant about it. Enjoy!
The wardens are ghosts. They are born by letting go of everything you had before and drinking poison to bind your fate to the darkspawn and promise that your life and perhaps more importantly, your death belongs to them. The whole joining is a terrifying experience, you're drinking the blood of monsters and seeing a corrupt god in your mind and waking up to see those who died around you and being told you'll meet the same fate soon enough you've just been given more time to get there because to sacrifice, to die is a warden's purpose. Even if you survive becoming a warden, your best case scenario is sacrificing yourself to end the blight but it's far more likely you'll die fighting darkspawn or even more likely lose your mind and have to go to the deep roads to be lost and have your death be your last act of defiance in the face of this overwhelming wave of evil waiting to rise again. The best thing that can happen to a warden is to die in a meaningful way because you gave away your life the moment you drank that blood. All you are now is a soldier waiting to die in war and hopefully take the enemy down with you. It is tragic and haunting and noble and so full of grief. Grief for the live you gave behind and for the one you'll never have. Every warden spends every day of their life hoping not for a future or any life for themselves but simply to make their death mean something which is an incredibly interesting mental state and I could go on about how that effects individuals and messes with their values so that corruption is rife but what started this whole thing is Fereldan.
A wonderful post by @sapphim (which I don't know how to cite but I wanna give credit so if there's a way please tell me) discussed how beneficial it was for the wardens that the fifth blight occured in Fereldan and how much they lost by it being solved so soon. To put it simply, they wanted to sacrifice Fereldan as a lost cause and use it as an example of why they wardens shouldn't be neglected. They wanted it to be known of how much of a sacrifice they make an how important their duty by letting the country of Fereldan be an example of what happens when no one is there to do it and that the narrative has doomed everyone, that the world's crimes will be paid for unless someone is willing to be selfless and bear the burden to give the world another chance. Andraste would have been a great warden I'm sure. In the eyes of the warden, Fereldan is tainted just like their blood, it is promised to the darkspawn just like they are, willingly or not it bears the duty that all wardens do and must make the sacrifice they do too. For the greater good. To stop the darkspawn. It's better you having a death that matters than a life that lasts. This is the psychology of the wardens and they are applying those same beliefs to all of Fereldan. Why must they be the only ones doomed by the narrative? There is no surviving this story and there is saving the world there is only killing the darkspawn before it kills you. Thedas is at war with the archdemons and until they're all dead, there is no peace, there is only preparing for the next battle. There is no building a life, no building a country, there is nothing to protect because it is all doomed.
The way duty and sacrifice and the promise of the Grey Wardens must alter their values and perspective on life is fascinating and there is so much to explore here but what's important for this post is that the foundation of their entire order is that they are already dead.
This then brings us to the HOF and cheating death. Duncan is like the grim reaper in Origins the way he comes and snatches your soul at the end of each origin which I honestly love and it ties in so well to the idea that wardens are ghosts given you die in every other version of the story without him but that's the story of all wardens. They all die a symbolic death at the joining so that's okay but then Ostogar happens. Flemeth happens. You should have died. Fereldan should have been lost. Remember, the duty of the wardens is dying not surviving but you did survive, snatched away by a god. Every other warden has died thinking their paying the price for an absent god yet this goddess not only favours you, she changed fate for you. Every other warden throughout history has paid the price but not you. Not Fereldan. You get to cheat the fate while it dooms everyone else. Can you imagine how that must have felt for the other wardens? How much they must hate the hero for stealing the martyr Fereldan was set to be and making all their losses naught but a tragedy when it could have been so much more? Not only did you escape your own death but you stole the value of theirs. You survived which goes against everything the wardens are made for.
Going even further than that, you have the dark ritual where you can actively choose to cheat death again. When every other warden has had to give their life, had to sacrifice and lose and grieve and poison their humanity as they did their bodies, you get to escape it all. Wardens have struggled for decades to have a foothold in Fereldan but you'll go so far as to choose their ruler for them without any consultation. You have been a warden less than a year, ended a battle that they prepared for over hundreds of years and sacrificed more hundreds of years fighting in the past and not only have you defied everything they defined themselves by, you have made them look like fools and decided their fate for them. You have stolen the meaning of the death of every warden, you have stolen their martyrs and the justifications for their actions and by keeping your own life and humanity, by resisting their poison you have made them all look like monsters.
The hero was doomed by the narrative as all wardens are but they rewrote fate, they stole their life back so many times and by surviving, they created a whole new narrative that ruined everything the wardens were built upon. The wardens were made to be ghosts, not heroes. They're meant to die and be remembered nobly so they can be redeemed for they had to do to get there but not you hero. You get to shame us all, don't you?
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Mage Ranks the JD2023E Map… Locked Out of Heaven
IT’S BLORBO TIME BITCHES. Um, I mean, we’re getting a bit dramatic now in our story line, as we meet Jack Rose, the flamboyant superstar son of our main villain!
MAP: Locked Out of Heaven - Bruno Mars
DIFFICULTY: Medium
EFFORT: Moderate
JD+ NEEDED?: No
SEASON: Base game/Enter the dancerverses playlist
Category Seven Autism Event inbound under the cut! Seriously, though, this one is long, ramble-y, and overall just a big excuse for me to infodump the fuck out of this map. It might not make a lot of sense, but putting it all down made me happy, so I hope it makes you happy to read it :)!
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I don’t need to tell you this song is good, right? It’s Bruno fuckin’ Mars, of COURSE it’s good! This song was actually pre-Uptown Funk, and it’s honestly one of his best songs from that time. I actually hated a lot of early Bruno Mars stuff (Grenade my beloathed), but now he’s probably one of my favorite vocalists. So yeah, I don’t need to tell you the song fucks! You already know that!
However, it’s the way that this song is used that fascinates me. The original context of the song is just “wanting to spend the night at someone’s house because they’re real good in the sack”, and the JD team saw that and went “But What If It’s About Parental Neglect” and ran with it. During the second verse, Night Swan’s face keeps taking over the background, that’s supposed to just be reflections of Jack dancing. And during that final chorus, after the first gold move where Jack is on his knees, and Night Swan Tower reveals itself, the jumbotrons that had Jack’s face on it are replaced by the tower’s visage, as the chorus sings “I’ve been locked out of heaven/for too long/for too long” and it fades back to his room, right where we started. Hell, even before that, he’s pointing to the audience during the lines “Can I just stay here?/Spend the rest of my days here?”, telling us in pretty fucking clear terms that his passion isn’t what he’s supposed to do, but what he wants to do - perform. He’s been locked out of heaven for too long, he’s been kept away from the love a mother should express for her child. And now he’s trying to find that happiness in his performance.
Speaking of, the routine! It’s fucking great! I think it’s ranked pretty fairly in terms of difficulty and effort, but if I can be honest, I found this routine shockingly easy. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but after the technical nightmare that was Rather Be, and the (slight spoilers) upcoming technical nightmare that is Majesty, I would consider LOoH as almost a breather level. Almost, I say, if it wasn’t for the FIFTEEN SPINS you have to land. Seriously, between the one leg spin-hop, the full circle he makes during the chorus, and even the spin you have to do before the final Gold Move, there’s a reason a lot of people were joking that this song should’ve been called “Spinned Out of Heaven”. But maybe it’s the theater kid in me (it’s probably the theater kid in me), I didn’t find the spins all that difficult or demanding. And both the Gold Moves in this routine are fairly easy, with one being the jump you have to do at the start of the final chorus, and the other being the final move in the entire song, the hand raise that you started with. If I had to complain about one thing, I would say that I wish they had you “holding” the microphone in your right hand more. It’s easy for me to imagine holding the mic while doing certain moves, the bridge of the song being the most obvious, but most of the time it’s “in” your left hand when the game only tracks your right hand. It’s just a bit of a dissonance in my head, where it goes “wait, but i AM holding something in the right hand, why are you saying there’s something in my left?!”. But at that point, that’s just a nitpick.
The whole choreography tells us so much about Jack as a dancer. He’s flamboyant, he’s a showman, he lives for the dramatics. He knows how to work a crowd! His stage presence is amazing.
Speaking of! Jack Rose! The blorbo that has ruined my fucking life!!!
Quick note before I get into this... I’m not crazy when I say his name, Jack Rose, probably comes from the two main characters from Titanic, Jack and Rose, right?! No one else has pointed this out, not even the wiki, and I feel like I’m going fucking crazy. Like I know “Jack” is a very common guy’s name and “Rose” ties into the face his main color is red, but together? That’s a Titanic reference, baby! I’m not the only one who saw that, right?????
Anyways! Look at this man in his red suit, his stupid (affectionate) feather boa shoulder piece, his lipstick matching his hair, his gold glove, his stupid little microphone!!! All of this combined makes for one hell of a memorable character, at least for me. I love love love love LOVE monochrome character palettes, I love the mix of reds and blacks, I love it when random strappy things are on a character, I love a little pop of fur...
... wait a god damn second. Those are all the elements my ultimate blorbo of all time has!!!
(pictured: my ultimate blorbo of all time, aka my warrior of light in final fantasy xiv, ahrora, in her current outfit. note the reds, blacks, strappy things, and pop of fur. no matter what, she’s always gonna be my absolute favorite just because she’s my oc i poured so much into. don’t worry rora, you’re not getting replaced, you never could be <3) (it doesn’t help that her main class is quite literally dancer ALDFSKJAS;DFLKJASLD)
Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch, but I do adore red-coded characters, and honestly with the feathers it’s reminding me of one of my top 5 favorite characters of all time, Yamato Kazakiri from Animal Sentai Zyuohger, mostly because they’re both red and both give off Bird Vibes and not much else. But Yamato could sometimes serve this type of cunt. But now we’re getting twenty miles off from the topic so let’s get back the fuck on track.
Okay I’m sorry this is so much longer and more disjointed than the other reviews but this map makes me scream cry and throw up.
The map starts with Jack as a kid, dancing alone in his room. His mother, Night Swan, looks on, and motions in a way that says she’s disapproving of her son’s actions.
How it’s supposed to come off: Night Swan disapproves because Jack is supposed to be training to be the leader of her army, and shouldn’t have time for frivolous shit like “his own happiness”.
How it comes off to a lot of people: Night Swan disapproves because Jack is expressing his interest in a traditionally “feminine” hobby.
I’m not sure how many people related to that second interpretation, but I did see a LOT of people say that’s how they felt when they saw this cutscene for the first time. Personally, my interpretation was more like the first one; Jack wasn’t being absolutely perfect, and she thinks that if he’s not, he shouldn’t even bother. Of course, a bit of parental neglect never stopped anyone! It just traumatizes and yassifies you!
Honest to god, when I first saw this transition from his child self to his adult self, it made me gasp a bit, Even after his mother has expressed disapproval, he’s still going forward with being a performer. Sure, he is the main leader of her assimilated army, but he just wants to perform in front of people! And he loves it! And the audience loves him too!
But at the end of the day, the one person who he just wants to get some form of approval from won’t give it to him. He’s not good enough.
No, not good. She doesn’t care much for good.
He’s not perfect enough.
God, the love of performance and heartbreak over still not getting any love from his mother after all this time is portrayed so well by his dancer. Makes me feel extremely insane.
I think a question that’s fair to ask is “well if she wants Jack to follow all her orders, why not assimilate him, too?”. And I think the answer is twofold. One, she needs someone who’s able to make snap decisions outside of her own brain to lead her army successfully. If you’re left to your own devices, you may end up making a huge mistake you didn’t foresee. And secondly, no matter how much parental neglect she’s shown Jack, on some level she can’t bring herself to assimilate him because he is her son. She doesn’t care about his happiness, but she doesn’t want to lose someone who may potentially be the final tie to her life before Night Swan, since the dad seems to be M.I.A. And her disapproval of Jack being a performer might stem from her own insecurities of being a failed ballerina; she’s already gone through the pain and humiliation of trying to be a performer and failing, and she doesn’t want Jack to go through the same. Of course, there might be an element of jealousy there too. He IS a successful performer. He’s performing in front of an arena of people, for god’s sake! She’s seeing him live out a dream she couldn’t have, and wants to shut that down for him.
Many thoughts, head full, blorbo living in there.
Of course, by the end of the map, the Just Dancers make it through to where he’s staying...
But for now, that’s where our story must stop.
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GENERAL RATING: THUMBS UP!!!!!!!!
SPECIFIC RATING: 10/10
Holy shit this is my favorite map in the whole game. I don’t give a shit. The choreography is fun and easy for a theater kid like me to grasp while still being genuinely challenging in a fair sense, the story of the map is told so well in less than five minutes, Jack Rose is just an iconic coach, everything about him just rattles my fucking brain like a cup of dice. Does he know how much I care about him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And to top it all off, he gets a song that already fucked hard and gets it recontextualized to be about an emotionally distant, neglectful mother, and how he just wants that closeness with somebody, anybody, and that he just wants to perform!
He just wants someone close to him to care about it, too!
... Is that really too much to ask?
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THANK YOU for reading, especially if you actually DID read my absolute fucking brain rot on a page and didn’t just scroll down to the end. No shame if you did, I would do the same LMFAO. Next time, we’re looking at the penultimate song in the playlist, Majesty! There’s no obligation to follow me (especially not after the absolute thesis i just wrote), but if you wanna see my rankings of all the other JD2023 maps, please stick around! I promise they won’t be as long/disjointed/nonsensical as this one ended up being! Have a good day!
~ Mage <3
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