I'm playing through Dragon Age 2 again and I just can't get over how... idk how to say it exactly, but the way you feel, in every moment of this game, how much Varric loves Hawke. It feels entwined with everything, it breathes through every part of the narrative, it blooms diegetigally through the integration of story and gameplay, makes you a co-conspirator in that love in a way maybe only a video game could.
It's in the way I don't think this story is a defense of Hawke only -- or even primarily -- directed at Cassandra, but at Hawke themselves. Beneath everything else going on there's the quiet, utterly unshakable refutation of Hawke's worst fears: Did you think you mattered, Hawke? Did you think anything you ever did mattered? . . . You're a failure, and your family died knowing it. Rising through the story as Varric tells it there's a fiercely tender voice saying: Yes, you did matter. In tragedy or in triumph, for better or for worse, in love or in hate, you always mattered. The ultimate tragedy of Hawke is always right there in the open before the story even starts letting you in on telling it; they couldn't fix anything. They couldn't stop the downward spiral Kirkwall was set on -- the real truth is that no one person ever could. And yet the point of DA2 is that it matters that they tried, and it matters that there were people who loved and were loved along the way, however badly it all failed in the end. Hawke is the Bioware protagonist who succeeds the least, and they're the character who matters the most, to me. (This is also why the Absolution reveal did not shake me in the least haha, my love for Hawke has nothing at all to do with whether they succeeded or failed at anything.)
What Varric is saying, in the only way he seems to be able to say the really real things -- through stories -- is so simple and so fundamental. You were here, and I loved you. There's the emotional heart of it, at the end of it all, that love and grief and recognition. It's so dizzyingly intimate. There's so much distancing, layers upon layers of obfuscation, to be able to say it. It drives me insane!!!! It makes me feel the same way that 'Poem' by Langston Hughes does:
I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There's nothing more to say.
The poem ends,
Soft as it began,—
I loved my friend.
He loved his friend. They went away from him. What more is there to say. (Many, many, many things, when you're a compulsive liar and storyteller, but hey sometimes you have to deploy a whole armada of lies to tell one simple truth, I understand, I'm a writer too lol)
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Another Fable thought that could become fic, but nahhh
Just a silly what if Rae went into Icarus's mind to help them
Characters: Icarus, Rae, Sherbert, Ashrill
Now imagine Rae going in their mind to try and save Ic, and it's either gold or a rainbow. There is no fully just Icarus, only the person that others made them.
There are different versions of ic in there, like how Rae had a different him, but at the same time, they're not Icarus. The first one Rae meets is a fully corrupted Sherb; it's how they, themselves, see them. They are corrupted, they are making the same mistakes no matter what, thats what they are. This corrupted version leads them to a patch of a rainbow, more specifically purple, where once Rae enters finds a version of ic that's an elf? They're kind, offering to help Rae with his journey, but Rae can tell the elf is lonely. There is no other building around outside if the sherb tm build style. The elf gives Rae a bead, then rae is back in the normal plain of gold and rainbow. The corrupted version of Icarus is there again, laughing at Rae, trying to actually help them; they're just like this, there's nothing you can help with. But Rae moves along, finding a new colour, one he hasn't seen before, a dark red; he goes in. The Icarus that Rae finds is another bird but very different, a roadrunner. She was admiralty put in alarm at the sudden appearance of Rae, someone who he thought they would never see again. Rae reassures her that he means no harm and is looking to help someone. The roadrunner says they'll help, and they look around the floating island that they've made a house on. Rae noticed something while they were talking this Icarus seemed to always be on edge, like they were ready to run or fly at any second. Was every version of their brother in some form of pain?
They don't know. But after a moment of looking, the roadrunner found another bead and handed it to Rae with a goodbye.
"Wowie, you're really trying this," The corrupted version spoke as Rae entered the field again.
"Yes, I'm not giving up on you, Icarus."
"You should, not like you'll find the last 2 that you need."
"So there's two more."
"w-what no!" the corrupted one stuttered out as Rae continued to move forward, finding an almost fully broken part the gold on it was faded, but Rae entered.
It's their childhood home, but it was a bit dirty it seemed like someone had just been baking. Rae walks around looking for Icarus. When they hear a thud coming from upstairs. He quickly makes his way over and finds a much younger Icarus on the floor, it seems they had fallen off. They quickly spot the much older Rae.
" Who are you! I'm real good with a sword" they say as they jump up to their feet.
"I'm Rae. I don't mean you any harm. I just heard you fall and got worried."
"Oh… you share the same name as my brother! That's cool. My brother is really small right now. Mom says I was that small once, too, but I don't believe her. Don't tell her I said that, tho." Icarus puts a finger to their mouth in a hushing motion.
"I won't tell your mom, but are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I fall ALL the time, this new home, Mom allows me to go outside, and I can climb the trees, and Dad's not here to- To, I don't really know, but Dad wouldn't let me."
"You fall a lot, you always do" Rae says a bit bittersweetly.
"You're my brother, aren't you?" Rae just nods. " You're all big. You get such a cool horn? Do I get one? Is Mom still with us? Do we find Dad? Do I become real good at the alcemy?"
Rae giggles softly." You don't get a horn, but you do get wings."
"I GET WINGS!!!!!"
"Yes, you do… um, Mom isn't with us right now, but I'm looking for her. You do become really good at making potions, and um, Fable is back, but he's done a lot of bad things, and he forced you to think some not-good things and a lot more."
"Oh… Are we still brothers?" Icarus is saddened.
"We are, and we always will be."
"O-okay," Icarus nods. Icarus looks through their pocket and brings out another bead. " Then save me."
"I will." Once Rae grabs it, they get brought to a different room, but one they are very familiar with, the cell that housed Icarus back in the endstone reset.
"So, for some reason you still think I should be helped? Despite everything I had done to you, you really think that Icarus is worth saving?"
"Despite everything you've done, you, Icarus, are still my brother. Even if you fall to Fable time and time again, I will still be there. I will still be your brother because I love you, Icarus and nothing you do will change that. You ARE my brother, that can sometimes be a bit rude and a bit harsh but you never failed to care for me. You could have left me there when you through that potion, but you didn't. You stayed and made sure I was okay. When I was turning into a beast, YOU were there. You were there when we had nothing but each other. I know Fable is promising you to bring them back, but Icarus, you'll lose so much more; please, I don't want to lose you too."
When Rae looks up to Icarus, they aren't corrupted. Their ears and wings hugged close to them.
"I-I don't want to lose you either, But Rae, I've gone too deep."
"Then let me help you up."
Icarus signs and walks over to Rae, and places the final bead in his head. "You win, Rae."
-The end-
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