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old-archivist · 2 years

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Foods of Thedas: Comics

So, while you wait for the multi-post compilation of food, I thought I could share the stuff I'm grabbing stuff from the newest comics - Magekiller, Knight Errant, Deception, and Blue Wraith. Those comics being the only ones with food clearly displayed. There are some that are pretty easy to identify, some that aren’t.

So, I’ve gathered some images and I’ve shoved it below the cut cause this post is long and image heavy.

Croissants in Deception.

Continuing with Deception, this is taking place in Tevinter. We see figs, pears, grapes, a gourd or squash of some type, and purple fruits up front that I shouldn’t hazard a guess with (I’m banking on dates or currants).

Cupcakes, cookies, and what looks to be sugar cake and chocolate cake. (Magekiller)

Same scene as previous. This platter has candy canes, macaroons, more cupcakes, some type of cookies, what looks to be an “old fashioned” donut and another croissant. (Magekiller)

This is a scene in Kirkwall, featuring tomatoes, sausage, salad, roast bird (I’m guessing turkey, yellow rind cheese, and some sort of topped cookie. (Knight Errant)

This shot is from Starkhaven. We see suckling pig, grapes, apples, orange rind cheese, another platter of meat that is hard to identify. (Knight Errant)

Same scene as the previous panel from a different angle. This including bananas, grapes, apples, orange, an orange rind and a yellow-brown rind cheese. (Knight Errant)

This image and the next two I find interesting. They’re all in the same market, Edgehall in Ferelden. What is interesting to me is that they clearly have bananas, pears, and oranges. Fruits that need warmer weather and also longer growing seasons. Oranges and Pears are possible in Ferelden though, if they do espalier. Which I talk about in this post. Essentially, it’s a trellising method where you prune growing trees so they are more 2 dimensional, usually placed against walls. This allows them to be more productive, easier to manage, and by placing them against warm brick walls, allows them to survive colder climates. It does takes a few years to reach a “mature” tree that way, but the benefits are substantial.

Canonically we only espalier in Orlais, specifically in Val Royeaux. Even then they seem more decorative. But given the amount of warm climate fruit readily available in Ferelden, I’m betting they also practice it.

As for the other produce in the market we see in this image, it looks like potatoes, Vaea is wheeling a cart of red fruit (apples I think) and someone else is selling a crate of red fruit as well. (Knight Errant)

Following Vaea through the market we see sausage, some more cured meat hanging from the shops, oranges, pots of seasoning that looks to be either sugar or salt. And an semi-hard cheese. (Knight Errant)

Last panel for Edgehall’s market, we see more potatoes, apples, and pears with a few strings of garlic and sacs of food. (Knight Errant)

These last three images are clear shots of food that I honestly only have theories for and are thus speculative.

Through out Deception, you see these rolls of green things on the table. I have no idea what they might be. They do make me think of that food dolma, stuffed grape leaves. But I can’t say for sure. (Hello Dorian)

Unidentified meat, probably a type of poultry leg, and what looks to either be flat bread or something green. (Deception)

Then there is this cheese, and I’m thinking it’s either Gouda or Edam, which like Gouda is a semi-hard dutch cheese. They often have the same wine and food pairings. (Blue Wraith)

#dragon age meta #dragon age comics #dragon age magekiller #dragon age deception #dragon age knight errant #dragon age blue wraith #Foods of The Dragon Age Setting #foods of Thedas #long post #Archi is Archiving #Dorian #Vaea

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anneapocalypse · 2 years

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Dragon Age: Magekiller and Knight Errant

Magekiller

Dragon Age: Magekiller is the fourth in the Dark Horse series of Dragon Age graphic novels, published serially in 2015 and 2016. It introduces two new characters, Tessa and Marius.

Tessa Forsythia is a young woman from a Nevarran family who has left her noble bloodline behind in favor of a life hunting powerful mages. Marius, you’ll recognize if you read the short story “Paying the Ferryman,” about Inquisition’s minor antagonist Calpernia, published online earlier in 2015. Marius was enslaved in the home of the same magister as Calpernia and they were friends and then lovers, and until Marius was unceremoniously sold, removing him from Calpernia’s life without even the chance for a goodbye.

I read these comics first in digital format, and then more recently re-read them as part of the print collection Dragon Age: The First Five Graphic Novels, which I would highly recommend picking up if you, like me, prefer reading print media, and if you, like me, are inherently wary of media which is licensed rather than owned and which can therefore be yanked out of your library at any time. (It’s also just a lovely volume for your bookshelf.) It is a bit funny to re-read because the print version, in addition to lacking page numbers, has all indicators of breaks between issues removed. So Tessa introduces herself and Marius on the third page or so, and then about 20 pages later introduces both again as though you might have forgotten who they are, even though there has been no pause in the narration in between. Ah, comics!

From here on, there will be spoilers!

The comics from this point on take place during and after Inquisition. Magekiller in particular takes before and during the game, and the plot centers around a high level hit on four Venatori leaders for which Marius and Tessa are hired, with their extreme reluctance, by the Archon of Tevinter himself. Things are complicated when the fourth target turns out to be none other than Calpernia, and Marius immediately locks lips with her instead of putting a blade through her heart. Tessa, already having suspected they would be cleaned up as “loose ends” once the job was done, agrees to leave the job unfinished. Calpernia helps the two get out of Tevinter, but they’re pursued by the Archon’s hit squads. The Conclave boom happens as they flee south, and rifts burst open all over Thedas. As Tessa and Marius try to protect innocent people from rampaging demons, they are recruited to the Inquisition by Charter.

Charter and Tessa’s initial meeting is a particularly fun scene—meeting in a tavern with blades to one another’s throats. And eventually, ending up in bed together! It’s always nice to have a canon F/F ship, and while I don’t mind having some that don’t end happily, it’s also nice to have some that do, and I like Charter and Tessa a lot.

Tessa meeting Charter also plays into the more personal themes of the story, which center around friendship and loyalty. Marius and Tessa have worked together for a long time, and in their work they trust one another completely. The narrative is from Tessa’s point of view, and it’s clear that she cares for Marius deeply, and yet it also becomes clear that she’s lonely with just him as a friend. Marius is quiet, and to a certain degree closed off because of his past. When he’s reunited with Calpernia, it shocks Tessa, because she never realized he was even capable of such feelings, nevermind that he had had romantic relationships before. She and Marius call of their entire mission, putting themselves in even greater danger than they were already in because of his feelings for Calpernia, and she never questions it. When she realizes she has real feelings for Charter, she starts to wonder if there’s more out there for her. In the eleventh hour, she does start to wonder whether Marius would stick his neck out for her the way she has for him—and she finds that the answer is yes. Though Marius does not show his feelings with words, they are no less real, and his loyalty to her is no less strong. Despite the rekindling of old relationships and the spark of new ones, their bond is reaffirmed in the end.

A bunch of Inquisition characters show up, including Dorian, Charter, the Bull’s Chargers, and Sutherland’s crew. After the sometimes over-the-top melodrama of the first three graphic novels, I must say I’m a big fan of this direction of putting new character in the protagonist seat, with game characters getting cameos but not taking over. The back half of the story certainly feels like a love letter to fans who love Inquisition’s minor characters—by which I mean me. But they don’t detract from the story of Marius and Tessa, which I appreciate.

Magekiller also gives us a northern perspective on magic, sort of, though I wouldn’t say it spends a whole lot of time on that theme. It does so insofar as Marius and Tessa’s profession is itself a commentary on magic in the north. Marius comes a nation where mages weild near-unstoppable power not just magically but politically, and was himself enslaved by a magister for many years. Tessa isn’t Tevinter, but Nevarran, where the Mortalitasi play an interesting political role; nothing close to the magisters, but an influence far above the Circle mages of the south. Tessa herself says early on, “The problem with magic is that it cheats. It is, at its root, an unfair advantage.” She says this, I note, not of mages but of magic itself: a force in the world which stacks the deck, giving some individuals a power disproportionate to others, a fact of which those in the north are profoundly aware. Marius and Tessa are not templars; they have no special powers derived from lyrium or the spirit power of Seekers, only the learned skills of those practiced in combat against mages.

The title “Magekiller” feels a little unnecessarily provocative because we’re so used to the attitudes toward mages in the south, especially for a story that isn’t really about killing mages! It’s not really about mages at all, northern or southern, but about loyalty and friendship.

Those themes will continue in the next graphic novel, Knight Errant.

Knight Errant

Dragon Age: Knight Errant is the fifth in the Dark Horse series of Dragon Age graphic novels and was published serially in 2017. It introduces two new main characters, Ser Aaron Hawthorne and his elven squire Vaea. (Evidently, the comics writers pronounce her name “Vie-uh” and the BioWare writers tend to say “Vay-uh” so it’s anybody’s guess what we’re going to hear if she shows up in DA4 but for now I’m going to think of it the way the comics writers say it.) Tessa and Marius, from the previous graphic novel, return in this story. Varric and Sebastian from Dragon Age II also make appearances, as well as some characters from Dragon Age’s tabletop RPG, published in 2010.

I feel the need to note here that this graphic novel as well as the last one seems to be indulging in the well-worn trope of giving dark-skinned characters light-colored eyes. Tessa’s are blue; Vaea’s are green. Marius at least has brown eyes, and if it was just one character I wouldn’t have commented at all, but since it happened twice… It’s a common trope in sci fi and often fantasy as well when the medium is drawn or animated, and I don’t know at what critical mass it becomes a problem but it’s two POV characters in two graphic novels in a row now so that feels noteworthy.

Anyway, Vaea is in many ways one of my favorite RPG character types: scrappy, stealthy, city elf thief, and it’s a good time watching her parkour her way around Starkhaven.

Spoilers follow!

After her youthful idealism was shattered in a failed attempt to save the day in the alienage of her youth, Vaea is disinclined to fight for “causes.” The violence of Edgehall’s oppressive Arl Lendon took from her not only her parents, but her beloved Uncle Coran, who joined a Dalish clan which in turn seemed to take a particular interest in aiding the alienage.

This story is set after Dragon Age: Inquisition, the game—but as we will learn, the Inquisition still exists as an organization, though perhaps smaller and less prominent, and its agents are still in play—including Charter, who approaches Vaea about a job.

Class politics rear their head in this story, and it’s interesting to see the ways in which they cause tension—and don’t. Sebastian, now Prince of Starkhaven, isn’t affronted in the least when Vaea, an elf, flirts with him, and he treats her graciously. Honestly, it’s pretty cute. Whatever Sebastian’s other faults might be, I am reminded of the fact that he spent a lot of time in the company of elves in Kirkwall, and in particular was friendly with Fenris.

I enjoy the fact the Vaea pulls an “old Dalish saying” out of her ass—"Not my circus, not my monkey!“—and is called on its lack of veracity immediately.

I especially love Ser Aaron. He’s really presented as a sort of "Knight of the people,” a landless knight who travels, drinks a lot, and tells tales from his glory days. He is rumored to have been a soldier loyal to King Cailan who somehow survived Ostagar, though no one knows quite how. He was knighted by King Maric after intervening to prevent further violence during the Orlesian withdrawal at the end of the occupation. There is also a sadder and more serious side to Ser Aaron, and I think it shows through a bit in his habitual drinking, hinting at the things he has seen that he’d like to forget.

Vaea and Sera Aaron have a great dynamic. When Vaea’s honor is impuned, Ser Aaron does not hesitate to defend her. Even though it comes out in the end that he knows about her stealing, and always has. He knew that her perhaps ill-gotten gains always came from those who could well afford the loss, and go to those less fortunate, and as such he is willing to turn a blind eye, and even take responsibility when push comes to shove. He shows himself not only a man of honor but a man who places the needs of others before himself, and disdains those who would exploit others for their own advancement, like Professor Marquette, whom he clearly finds repellent.

There are a hilarious few panels in this story in which Ser Aaron is being accused of thievery by Professor Marquette while Varric defends his honor. Their conversation is illustrated by two panels featuring Empress Celene, which are clearly not meant to be taken literally, but it would be very funny if they were because they would imply that a) Vaea once stole the crown jewels from the neck of the Empress of Orlais without getting caught, and b) Empress Celene has one blue dress that she wears all the time forever. I guess when Briala left her, she forgot how to dress herself.

But my favorite parts of this story were the glimpses of Vaea’s backstory and the Edgehall alienage. I really enjoyed seeing a part of Ferelden we hadn’t seen before, seeing an alienage in another city, and seeing a Dalish clan directly involved with an alienage community which we don’t see very often. I loved Vaea as a character all in her own right, and I thought her backstory was a really nice bit of worldbuilding. I also really loved her relationship with Ser Aaron, and how their partnership and friendship developed over the course of the story.

As the story concludes, Vaea and Ser Aaron are headed to Tevinter, and the next few graphic novels promise to take us north again!

Crosspost. Originally posted on dreamwidth on 4/4/22.

#magekiller #knight errant #dragon age graphic novels #dragon age #vaea #aaron hawthorne #tessa forsythia #marius #blunders of thedas

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