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stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage · 5 months

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This week on "CJ needs to gush about DAO": Morrigan's dark ritual.

I adore Origins because depending on how serious you take roleplay, every decision you make is a thread that leads back to your origin, and in this case of the ritual, who you choose to romance can have a major impact on how you handle this choice.

For context, my canon run is with a female Tabris who romances Alistair and keeps him as a Grey Warden, and is close friends with Morrigan. It's more in character for my Tabris to reject Morrigan's ritual and not even bring it up to Alistair, which would result in her leaving him behind while she makes the ultimate sacrifice in killing the archdemon... however, agreeing to convince Alistair to do the ritual with Morrigan is the only choice in the entire game where I break roleplay because I'm selfish and weak and I want Tabris to live.

I have a lot of strong feelings about the ritual, like it hurts me. It makes me want to chew on furniture. I can talk about it until I can talk no more. I so badly want to be strong enough to remain in character and reject the ritual.

Let me explain: Tabris survives an origin that deals with sexual assault. She gets kidnapped on her wedding day, she watches the other kidnapped women and her husband get murdered, and then is too late to save Shianni from being assaulted... and Tabris carries that trauma with her throughout the entire game.

If the way to save her life is to ask the two most important people she cares about; one being her lover and the other being her best friend; who she knows hate each other, to have dubiously consensual sex in order to make a baby to absorb the old god soul... she's saying no. The last thing Tabris would ever do is put someone into a sexual situation where consent is at all dubious after what she saw happen to Shianni and nearly happened to herself. She'd rather die than force that upon Alistair and Morrigan.

That's what I mean when I say origin affects everything; I know some will side eye that with "Really? Your warden would rather die than let Alistair sleep with another woman? It's one time, and Alistair agrees to it, so no one needs to die?"

Let me be clear in saying this isn't a "Morrigan slept with my man" issue. Sure, that part's awkward and it sucks, but that's not even breaking water tension, let alone diving into the deep waters to the core of the issue.

For my Tabris, this is about betrayal, consent, and accepting fate.

The person offering Tabris this deal is someone she thought of as a trusted friend who has actually been lying to her the entire time. It doesn't matter what Morrigan's intentions are now or if she genuinely wants to save the wardens. She knew from the beginning why Flemeth sent her with them, she admits as much. She knew a warden would need to make the ultimate sacrifice and then leveraged that to get what she wants. Morrigan waited until the night before, when Alistair and the warden learn one of them has to die to defeat the archdemon, and took advantage of the high running emotions and possibly the fear of dying to make the warden agree to her ritual.

At least, that's how my Tabris interprets this confrontation. She feels betrayed by someone she came to love like a sister and went out of her way to help Morrigan with her mother upon learning what's in Flemeth's grimoire. And then that someone tells her no one needs to die, she just needs to convince Alistair to sleep with her... which is a huge fucking problem.

The Alistair and Tabris romance is slow; it took a long time for either of them to be comfortable with being emotionally vulnerable and trusting each other with basic intimacy, let alone sex. Tabris is mortified at the idea of putting Alistair in this situation. Not only would it feel like a betrayal on her part to ask that of him, but she knows the last thing Alistair ever wants to do is father a bastard who then goes on to grow up without him. How could she possibly ask him to do that?

Then you consider that ritual or no, there isn't a guarantee that they'll survive anyway. Say they do the ritual and Tabris dies anyway; she made Alistair sleep with Morrigan in order to save her and then she died anyway. Or if Alistair dies then Tabris gets to live with the fact that the last person Alistair was with was a woman he hates because she asked that of him… and either way, Morrigan gets to walk away with what she wanted.

Tabris led the group, and she's accepted that if Riordan dies [which he does] then she'll be the one to make the sacrifice, even if it means breaking both hers and Alistair's heart.... except she doesn't because I'm a coward who doesn't want to lose her because my worldstate isn't good without her in it but I also refuse to lose Alistair so I just pretend it plays out differently in my head it's fine-

But... that's how I play Tabris and view the situation. My friend @pi-creates and I have discussed the dark ritual at length. While I play a Tabris who romances Alistair, Pi plays a Mahariel who romances Morrigan, so we have vastly different interpretations of the ritual itself and Morrigan's intentions.

Which yeah, it makes total sense that someone who romanced Morrigan with a different origin, and has the option to do the ritual with her rather than asking someone else to do it, wouldn't see this the way I do.

To quote Pi: "Playing as a male warden in the Morrigan romance makes the whole situation feel different, and maybe it’s because she’s presenting it differently due to the emotional connection, but it feels more like she’s opening up about her initial instructions (that she had been given by Flemeth) and offering a solution to avoid the possibility of death. And for my Mahariel, the constant threat of sudden death has haunted him from the start – he caught the blight and was ripped away from his clan (something he did not want to do in the slightest), got forced into a Grey Warden ritual that could kill him, was forced into a battle that could kill him, going on this whole quest that he never wanted but has now become responsible for regardless of his thoughts on the matter… the dark ritual may be one of the few moments where he is presented with an option to decide if he wants to walk into certain death, or take actions of his own volition to stop it.

"The idea of the ritual still feels like a dodgy thing to do since the ultimate outcome is unknown at that point, he’s taking Morrigan at her word that it will save the warden and that this child would be unharmed, just with an old god soul that she isn’t exactly clear on why she wants that and is determined to runaway immediately after the battle to secure it properly. It could be interpreted that it’s purely a preservation thing, but I’m biased to wanting Morrigan's intentions to not be power based.

"But also, taking part in the ritual isn’t as outlandish for my warden since he and Morrigan have already been involved in an intimate relationship. It’s the future of the ritual that is scarier – the idea of this old-god baby, and the idea of Morrigan insisting that she’s leaving afterwards when Mahariel and her have a loving relationship. He’s hurting, but he doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want Alistair to die, he doesn’t want Morrigan to leave, he definitely doesn’t want pregnant Morrigan to leave on her own… it’s complicated, but for completely different reasons."

And I find that fascinating. I want to know how other players approach this part of DAO, what origins they play, and who they romanced. Seriously, this is an invitation to anyone reading to share their thoughts.

What about a warden who doesn't even have Alistair in their party because they made Loghain a warden? Is there anyone out there who has Loghain do the ritual with Morrigan and why? What about male wardens who don't romance her? Do you choose to do it with her anyway, or do you ask Alistair or Loghain to do it? Do you tell Morrigan to fuck off with the ritual? Why? Who makes the ultimate sacrifice in that case? And what about Morrigan herself? How do you interpret her intentions/motivations? I want to know.

I'm telling you, this is a discussion that gets me excited, as most discussions about DAO do.

#dao #dragon age origins #alistair theirin #dao alistair #dao morrigan #da morrigan #tw: sa mention #long post #i love origins so much #every time i replay i end up on discord having this discussion with pi because it makes me *emotional*#and yes this is why i was looking up alistair's dialogue about a dead warden before #also want to clear up that while i am harsh on morrigan based on how my tabris feels i don't hate her or anything i love her #morrigan's one of my favorite characters and that's why the whole thing hurts like... tabris was happy for her to come along with them #since she still didn't know alistair well and felt more comfortable with another woman around even though she never felt threatened by him #and for them both to be her closest companions like.... it's a lot to take in #and its not like tabris is totally in the right here- she doesn't tell alistair it's an option when it could be argued that she should've #but like i said i've never actually turned down the ritual because i love my warden too much... i just close my eyes #and pretend there's an alternate solution where Alistair and Tabris do the ritual and they have the old god baby instead sksksks #that way no one has to sleep with someone they hate and alistair gets to be there to raise his child. it's fine everything's fine sksksk #i don't care if it doesn't work that way okay it's the only way this works out better for everyone... except maybe morrigan but still

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anghraine · 1 year

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I'm always torn between "am I just defensive over my fave or do they truly Not Get It" when people dismiss Mrs Reynolds's testimony.

I saw a take recently that was like, eh, so he's nice to a handful of people, that makes him marginally less of an asshole in a perfectly common way—and it's like, uh, no, the servants and tenants and family of someone with that much power = a lot of people, actually, any or all of whom could be screwed over by his whims at any moment and never have been.

And the idea that rich, powerful landowners commonly conducted themselves with generosity and concern towards their servants and tenants is absurd. Of course they didn't! Darcy is really the only one of the love interests in Austen's novels with that kind of power, and one of the only characters of that stature to be treated favorably at all, and he only gets away with it because he's Not Like The Other Ones. Even Wickham says:

"It has often led him [Darcy] to be liberal and generous, to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor."

Wickham is covering his ass in case Darcy's sterling reputation catches up with him, obviously, but there is a reason that Darcy's reputation is so exceptional. There's a reason Elizabeth is surprised even by something so small as him keeping on a housekeeper who is elderly and not particularly "fine" in appearance.

On top of that, the idea that being dismissive towards strangers but a loving and scrupulous guardian to his dependent sister in particular = an everyday occurrence? Yeah, no. The trope of young women who are exploited, disregarded, or otherwise screwed over by their brothers was really common and reflected an all-too-frequent reality (as discussed by Wollstonecraft!). The reason that well-off male characters' treatment of their siblings and especially their sisters could function so easily as a metric of inner character is because it was so often not the reality.

Men in that rough position were supposed to look after the welfare and interests of dependent sisters, esp orphaned ones—but few could actually make them do it and typically they gained little if anything from doing so. Mrs Reynolds's assertion that Darcy would do anything for Georgiana and his marked affection for her and willingness to defend her, even to older relatives when Georgiana isn't there, forms a contrast not just to the likes of John Dashwood but ... like, honestly, to Edward Austen-Knight as well.

It's not that nobody was ever more like Darcy in this respect, but it was frankly not all that common, and the novel emphatically treats his scrupulous, affectionate care for Georgiana as exceptional and part of his shining reputation.

With regard to his other family members—we don't meet many of them, but Colonel Fitzwilliam's surprise at and mockery of Darcy's current behavior leads Charlotte to conclude that it "proved he[Darcy] was generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told her."

This of course foreshadows Darcy proving to be "different" when encountered later. It's not that Darcy's behavior is radically transformed from what's normal for him, but that it's radically transformed from what's normal for him with people outside his (large) circle of family, friends, and dependents. And Austen takes pains to show that he largely reverts back to "old" Darcy when he's uncomfortable. The point of this isn't that his change isn't real, but that it's not some unrealistic total transformation.

The way he treats Elizabeth and the Gardiners isn't alien to his previous characterization. There were always people (whether Fitzwilliam, Mrs Reynolds, whomever) he treated like that. The change is extending that "generally different" conduct to people of much less consequence than himself, but not so much less that he has any particular obligation towards them. He's able to clearly and immediately recognize the Gardiners' virtues, to go investigating a random plant with Mr Gardiner, to form a rapport that will become genuine love for them over the course of his relationship and marriage to Elizabeth.

And a man like Darcy not only marrying a woman with relations in trade, but loving those relations and bringing them to his home as honored guests, is again, not common. Some historians have argued that his choices would be wildly unlikely IRL.

So yeah, no, Darcy isn't just decent towards a few people in a common way, nor nice to the people in his life that anyone in his situation would be, nor is his grand change unprecedented for him and uncomplicated by external factors or only to be expected. In the social world he was created in, he would be an extraordinary person.

#it's funny bc i was just arguing against over-historicization of texts with my advisors #but that isn't the same as total anti-historicization or some bizarro world version where context is reversed #'the text should have priority over theoretical contextualization' sure okay #'we don't need no stinking context only my gut feelings divorced from any kind of reality' ummmm. no.#anyway it's like 5 am and i somehow blasted through this without even getting to lydia but also that is very exceptional #on multiple levels #anghraine rants #austen blogging #austen fanwank #lady anne blogging #fitzwilliam darcy #anghraine's meta #long post

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